Sight
by RavenCurls
Summary: She is the beautiful girl that he met at the convenience store. He is the party boy who worms his way into her heart. Between them, they will have a love that will never change, even if the world has changed and so have they. 4-shot modern AU. High T for language use, mention of controlled substance and violence.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N Inspired by the frequent trips I made to the convenience stores during my recent holiday (for supper), and by The Wicked Years, of course.**

She was the most beautiful person he had ever met and most probably ever would.

Of course he did not think so when he first saw her. In fact, he would not have noticed her if his date for that night – some blonde with big boobs, long hair and even longer legs, accentuated by that micro mini dress with the plunging neckline that she had worn, decided to spice up his life by shoplifting.

She winked at him as he approached the counter with a six-pack of beer, and picked up a packet of condoms with her fingers, giving it a little shake before she dropped it inside her little hand bag. She licked on the ice cream seductively and gave him a smirk. Fiyero gave her a wide grin.

He placed the beer on the counter and fished out a twenty from his wallet, all the while ignoring the cashier behind the counter. The blonde wrapped her arms around his neck and he kissed her, tongue and all, while his hands roamed down her back and grabbed her ass.

The counter staff said something that he did not hear.

"Sir?"

"What?" he looked at the staff, covered from head and toe. Most probably it was an android underneath. Damn these 'service' staff for ruining the moment.

"Sir, that will be thirty-five."

"Thirty-five for an ice cream and beer?" he was shocked. Talk about inflation.

"And the condoms, sir," she gestured to the blonde's hand bag, her move too smooth to be that of a robot. "Ozman's Super-thin, strawberry flavour."

His date untangled herself from him and gave the counter staff a defiant look.

"Are you trying to insinuate that I steal your stuff? Who do you know he is? He is the Fiyero Tiggular, heir to Tiggular business empire. He can buy the whole condom company if he wants to."

Fiyero kept quiet. Yes, his father could afford to buy the whole condom company (as a matter of fact, one of his father's investment holdings was the majority shareholder of the condom's parent company) but that did not mean that he would.

"No one says the rich are above shoplifting," was the cashier's reply.

The blonde pressed on the bell on the counter repeatedly. "Where is your manager? I want to lodge a complaint."

The cashier was wearing a pair of over-sized sunglasses but Fiyero could almost see her rolling her eyes behind the shades.

"I won't do that if I were you. He's most probably dead drunk outside the alley," she advised. "The last time when a customer wanted to see him he came in and threw up on her branded bag."

The blonde looked at the cashier with a look of distaste.

"Oh great, just my luck to meet a cashier who thinks that she is soooo smart." She leaned forward. "If you are so smart why are you working in this lousy job and hiding your face behind the sunglasses? Are you disfigured or just plain ugly?" the blonde asked sarcastically as she drummed her fingers on the counter. The two did a mini face off of some sort, and Fiyero hoped all the while that no one would come in.

The cashier stood behind the counter, cool as a cucumber until his date suddenly struck. The former took a step back, but she was too late. The manicured fingers came into contact with her face and the sunglasses flew off and landed on the floor.

"You are a freak!" his date shouted with malicious delight. Fiyero turned his head to see what she meant, and it was only then that he saw the cashier's skin. It was the colour of emerald, marred by a scratch mark that bled slightly. The cashier's brown eyes widened in surprise, and she lifted a gloved hand to wipe off the blood.

The next thing he knew, his date was climbing onto the counter in a bid to get to the green girl.

"Don't!" he raised his voice as he grabbed her waist. His date struggled against his grasp as he pulled her down, and then broke off and slapped him across his face before she stomped off.

Fiyero froze for a while before he followed her, his hand rubbing the place where she had slapped him. At the door, he turned back and looked at the cashier. She had put on the large sunglasses, her face hidden once again.

He was half hoping that his date would be gone when he exited the convenience store, but there she was, in his convertible, the half-eaten ice cream on the floor next to the car. Her face was twisted, reflecting her fury. Fiyero sighed. He supposed he still had to send her home.

* * *

He went back the next night.

She was on duty again. Well, someone who looked like her anyway, with her hair tucked under the white cap, the surgical hair cap that was pulled down low. She wore a pair of sunglasses and a wide surgical mask covered the rest of her face. A dark colour scarf wrapped round her neck and tucked into her shirt. Her long sleeves and gloves covered her hands. There was not a single inch of green to be seen. She turned away the moment he entered the store.

He went up to the counter.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She busied herself by checking the stocks behind the counter and did not turn around. But somehow he knew that she was listening.

"For yesterday."

There was no response.

"My date was clearly rude, and I apologise on her behalf."

She continued to ignore him then moved to one of the aisles and arranged some of the stocks.

Fiyero pressed the bell on the cashier counter, trying to get her attention. She continued to ignore him.

Just then, a man twice his size came out from the room at the back of the store. He stepped past the girl kneeling on the floor, but the aisle was so narrow that he kicked her. He grumbled something about her blocking his way.

The man went to the counter.

"Are you getting something, sir?" he asked in a grumpy tone.

Fiyero looked nervously at the short display on the counter. He grabbed something from the shelf.

"Yes, I'm getting this."

The manager scanned his purchase and accepted his money before putting the item and the receipt into a small plastic bag. He then went back to his room, but not before pushing his staff on her shoulders, causing her to fell onto the floor.

"I didn't pay you to ignore the customers!" he roared.

Fiyero expected her to talk back to the manager, but she did not. She just kept quiet and continued to stack the items.

"Hey…." Fiyero tried to speak, but she continued to ignore him. He stood there for a while longer and then left the store.

She pretended to be engrossed in her job, and it was not until the chime notified her that the boy had exited that she stopped her pretence. It was only when she went back to the cashier counter that she realised that he had left his purchase behind. He had taken it out of the plastic bag and had written a note on the receipt in his scrawling handwriting.

_For you._

It was a packet of plasters.

* * *

He went back every night after that.

She would always be there, behind the counter, or shelving the items. But she never spoke. He no longer pressed on the bell to get her attention. He knew that it would only draw that rude manager out of his office and he would take it out on the poor girl.

He had to admit that he was intrigued by her. She had spoken against the shoplifting, which showed that she was not a timid person. Yet she did not talk back when her manager was rude to her. Were they related? He doubted so. They looked so different. Maybe they were married? She looked too young (from that glimpse that he had caught when her sunglasses fell off) to be married, but some people do marry young. He hoped that she was not. Maybe she needed the job? But there were so many convenience stores around looking for staff to man the midnight shifts. And that skin colour. Under the store lights, she had seemed almost surreal, despite being cladded in her uniform and all covered up. He wondered if she was green everywhere. He blushed at that thought.

He found out that she did not work on Mondays, and she would ignore him if he stood at the counter without buying anything. He considered shoplifting to get her attention but was afraid that the big size manager would come out from his office and haul him to the police. So every night, he would buy something – a packet of sweets, a can of drink, an ice cream, anything. He would choose an item and then walked aimlessly within the store until she moved to the counter, and that was when he would make a short dash to the counter, a grin on his face as he placed it on the counter.

"Good evening," he would say in his most cheerful voice. But she always ignored him. He would have thought that she was mute if she had not spoken on the first day that he went into the store.

One night, he took two packets of cigarettes from the shelf and placed it on the counter.

She took a long time looking for the bar code and an equally long time to scan the two packets before putting them into a plastic bag.

He almost did not hear it, but she mumbled as she pushed the bag toward him. "Smoking is bad for your health."

Fiyero chuckled.

"So you are just like the rest of them."

She snapped her head up.

"Like who?" the surprise in her voice was obvious.

"Like the rest of the girls. You like bad boys."

"Fool," she muttered under her breath and turned away, ignoring him again. But Fiyero left the store happy. He knew that she would speak to him again.

The next day he put two tubs of ice cream on the counter.

"Don't give me that look," he warned her. "I know that eating too much ice cream is bad for my health, but they are having a promotion – two for the price of one."

He could almost see the smile that formed behind the mask.

"When do you knock off? I'll wait for you outside the door," he gestured to the main door," and you can have one."

She kept quiet as she handed him his plastic bag.

"See you later," Fiyero said as he hooked his fingers through the handles of the plastic bag.

He knew that she would not leave by the front door, not after he had mentioned that he would wait for her. He had noticed a back door when he walked along the aisles. He suspected that she would attempt to leave by the back door at the end of her shift.

He parked his car one street away and waited at the roadside behind a parked car, at the junction where the alley met the road.

Fifteen minutes after her shift, he heard a low groan as someone pressed on the metal bar and pushed the back door open. She emerged with a big tote bag on her shoulders.

As she walked towards him unknowingly, she took off her sunglasses and surgical mask and dumped them into the bag. Then, she undo the first few buttons of her uniform and pulled out the scarf that was wrapped around her neck and put it inside her bag too. That was followed by her gloves. As she stopped at the junction, she took off her cap and surgical cap with one swift move and let her hair cascaded down her shoulders and to her waist like a midnight waterfall. She ran her fingers through her hair and gave her scalp a quick massage. Her hair shone, even under the dim lights.

Fiyero stepped out from his hiding place.

"Hey," he said.

He saw the surprise in her eyes, the hesitation. And then she tightened her grip on the straps of her bag and walked down the street, ignoring him. Again.

He caught up with her.

"Hey, I told you that I will wait for you."

"By the front door," she said grudgingly.

Fiyero chuckled. "So you sneaked out by the back door when I am supposed to be at the front door? You break my heart," he placed his hand over his heart.

He stole a glance at her. Her lips were turned up at the corners.

"Come," he said as he took out a tub of ice cream from the plastic bag that he was holding and opened the cover. "For you. It's melting. It's too good an ice cream to go to waste."

She looked at his outstretched hand.

"Come on, I didn't put any poison in it. No date rape drug either." To prove that the ice cream was not tainted, he dipped the spoon into the tub and ate the first scoop. The ice cream left a milk moustache above his upper lip.

She looked at him warily as he took a second and third scoop.

"I should be dead by now if it has been poisoned," he told her.

She reached out and took the tub. Fiyero opened the second tub and the two of them walked side by side, eating their ice cream.

"So where do you live? It's late, let me send you home," he offered when he had finished his ice cream. The dessert had turned his mouth cold and mist came out as he spoke.

"Just an ice cream and you expect me to let you know where I live?" she laughed. "Have I been so ill-informed or are you so used to getting your way?"

Fiyero smiled sheepishly, a hand behind his neck. "Yeah, oh." He dug into his pockets and took out a small item.

He passed the small plastic card to her and cleared his throat.

"Hi, my name is Fiyero Tiggular. I am a final year student from Shiz University. I am friendly and playful. I like to party and make new friends." he stretched out his hand. "Nice to meet you."

She looked at the card, turning it front to back and front again, looking at the photo of the handsome boy on the card and the crest of the university. Shiz University, one of the most prestigious universities around – famous for producing both students with high calibre and (on the other end) students who were famous for their hard partying and dancing through life attitude.

She pressed his student card onto his palm as she shook his hand.

"Elphie, convenience store cashier," she introduced herself.

Fiyero grinned as he slipped his card back into his pocket.

"That's all? Not Elphie the dragonslayer? Elphie the ice queen? Elphie the Robin Hood? Elphie the sorceress? Elphie the lost heiress? Elphie the heart breaker?"

She shook her head. "Just a convenience store cashier."

"So can I send you home now?" he asked.

Elphie looked up and down the street with deliberate slowness.

"Where is your car," she asked teasingly, a smile on her lips.

Fiyero looked, and it was only then that he realised that they had reached a part of town that he did not recognised. He had been so engrossed in her that he had not noticed where they were going.

Elphie laughed, a soft laughter that did not travel far even in the silence of the night.

"I will walk you to your car. A pretty boy like you should not be left unprotected in a street like this."

* * *

She only accepted a ride from him two weeks later.

She had a terrible day. Some drunk kids had come in earlier and smashed several glass bottles. And then one of them threw up on the floor. Guess who had to clean up the mess? And a friend of her manager dropped by for a visit and made a pass at her. The bastard manager only laughed. And when her shift finally ended, she went to the back door only to find that it was raining heavily. Elphie tried to open her umbrella but the wind was too strong, and she could feel her pants getting wet even before she stepped out of the building. As she struggled to open the umbrella against the wind, a shadow casted over her and she looked up with see Fiyero with the biggest umbrella that she had ever seen in her whole life.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her off the kerb and to him.

"Come, I'll send you home," he told her.

"I'll walk," she told him.

"In this weather? You will be blown away like a twig," he argued.

"I'll take a bus."

"The last bus just left."

She sighed. She could smell his cologne, the fragrance of his shampoo. Her hand snaked around his waist as he pulled her even closer, pressing her against his body. His fingers rested on her waist, a reassuring touch that she had not felt for a long time.

"Bad day at work?" he asked, sounding very gentle against the strong harsh wind that was blowing at them. His breath was warm against her cheek, causing a warm sensation that slowly spread to the rest of her body.

She did not say anything. They reached the car, and Fiyero pressed a button on his remote to open the passenger door, making sure that she was seated before he closed the door and entered by the other door.

He turned on the engine. A soft melodic music filled the air and Elphie could feel the heat coming out from the air vent. She raised her hand in front of the vent and gave an appreciative sigh. Fiyero turned and reached behind him. Elphie's eyes followed, and she saw, at the back of the car, a small pile of items. Milk, sweets, chocolates, plasters, towels. All the things that he had bought from the store for the past few weeks. He looked at her sheepishly, and took one of the small microfiber towels that he had bought a few days ago and passed it to her.

He looked at her as she took off her masquerade (that was what he called it secretly) before she wiped herself with the towel.

"So where do you live?" he asked when she was done.

"Just drive straight," was her answer.

Her haphazard directions ended them in a poorer part of the town, in front of a long flight of stairs that curved up and down like a rollercoaster and looked as if it would end up in the heavens. The rain had stopped. Without saying anything, she opened the car door and hopped out. Fiyero thought that she would turn around and said goodbye or something, but the next thing he knew, she was already several steps up the stairs.

"Hey," he shouted as he got out of his car.

She stopped and turned back, and he took the opportunity to catch up with her (he seemed to be doing quite a lot of that lately).

"Is that it?" he asked when he was within earshot.

"Is that what?"

"Do you live in this stairway or are we going someplace a bit more homely?" he waved at the space around them.

"Somewhere inside. There is no road for your flashy car."

"I will walk you home then."

"Look behind you, rich kid," she said.

He turned, and saw a few men surrounding his car, their hands caressing its metal body.

"Your car will be gone if you walk me home."

She placed a hand on his arm, pulling him down the steps. The men saw her approaching and they slid into the shadows. Fiyero wondered if they were afraid of him or her. He had a feeling that he was not the threat.

She walked him back to his car and watched him as he got in.

"Wind up the windows and go, rich kid. This neighbourhood is not for you," she told him as he started the engine.

He looked at her in his rear view mirror as he drove away. She just stood there, without an expression on her face, until he turned a corner and she disappeared from his sight.

He started sending her home every night.

She hardly spoke, and he would gauge her mood for the day by the scowl that she would flash him when she appeared or the music station that she chose that night (and the furious way she jabbed the buttons). Sometimes she would flick off the radio, and sighed pensively. He tried to fill up the emptiness between them sometimes by talking about what happened in school, about his friends. She would give her comment with a single word, with a growl or scoff. He thought that she had no problem expressing her opinions even if she did not talk much. He still partied with his friends, but he would stop at one drink and left in time so that he would be waiting for her when she knocked off from work. He learned his lessons after he turned up once smelling of alcohol. She refused to get into the car and refused to let him drive. She confiscated his car remote and hailed a cab for him, shoving him inside with a strength that he did not know she had.

He still visited the convenience store occasionally and buying things that both of them knew he did not need. One day, while he was trying to decide between chocolate or vanilla cookies, he noticed, from the security convex mirror at the ceiling, a man in a hooded shirt coming in. He threw a packet of sweets on the counter and slid the money across the counter with his palm down. And Fiyero saw that when Elphie collected the money, she slid the money with her palm to the edge of the counter and let a small packet dropped into her other hand and into her pocket. Her other hand pinched the money and dropped it into the cash register as if nothing happened. There was not a word exchanged between the two throughout the whole transaction.

Less than one hour later, a man carrying an infant came in to buy a bottle of chilled milk and she seamlessly dropped the packet into the plastic bag as she packed the milk. Again, there was not an exchange of word.

He continued to observe this over the next few days and then he could not contain himself any more.

"Are you dealing with drugs?" he asked her he stopped at a junction. They were in his car, and she had tuned in to a radio station playing oldies.

"What?"

"I saw the grandma today passing you that little packet which was picked up by the man with the child. Today is the third day that I saw him picked up something from you. Is that drugs?"

There was a silence. "It's none of your business," her voice was low.

Something in that voice triggered him. He turned off the radio.

"Is it none of my business? Elphie… if Elphie is your real name. You know something? I have been seeing you for months. I chose my new term's modules only if they did not have morning class so that I can sleep in after sending you home. I told you everything about myself, my family, my friends, my life. But I know nothing about you, except that your name is Elphie and you work in a convenience store. You spoke against shoplifting. I thought you have a high integrity, and now I have to find out that you are selling drugs? And to a man with a child?" He stepped on accelerator and sped through a red light.

There was silence in the car as he sped through a few junctions. She sat next to him, breathing heavily, and then she whispered.

"So you are a high class bastard who only hang around people with integrity? Like those girls who will crawl into the backseat of your car with you just because you bought them a nice piece of jewellery? Or your _buddies_," she said the word with sarcasm, "who will does not think twice of doping drinks or getting a girl drunk just to get what they want? Or to donate heaps of money to get a passing grade?"

He stopped at a red light then. He had to, because the car in front of him stopped. And the next thing he knew, she yanked the door open and got out of the car.

"Asshole," she said as she slammed the door. He stared at her, or rather, at her retreating back. And then the cars at the back horned at him and he had to move. He U-turned at the next junction and tried to look for her but she had disappeared into the thin air.

He could not sleep that night. He tossed and turned in his bed, looking at the ceiling, counting sheeps using his ten fingers and then he repeated the process again, but still sleep eluded him. He played her words over and over again in his mind. The anger on her face. The way he felt when she walked away.

Maybe it was not drugs. Maybe it was food vouchers or something. Maybe it was a life-saving medication that was bought off the black market because the man did not have adequate insurance. Or maybe it was a game – a small folded piece of love letter that was pass from one person to another, sending love to whoever who read it.

And then he thought again. Maybe it was drugs. She did not look like an addict, though he had never inspected her arms for tell-tale signs of drug abuse (though he had to admit that there were different ways of consuming drugs. He had, after all, experimented with them when he was younger). Maybe she needed the money. Maybe she had a father who owed a sky-high gambling debt and she had to sell drugs to pay off the loan. Maybe some drug peddler had held her little sister (if she had one) hostage and she was forced to do this. He would talk to her. He would pay off whatever debt she owned. He would use his family name to pull some strings if there was a need for a daring rescue operation into the heart of a drug den.

The next night, he bought a bouquet of poppies with him. He heard the familiar chime as he entered the store. She was behind the counter, a hand raised as the other hand scooped the money from the tray in the cash register into a bag opened on the counter. There was a man in front of her, a gun pointing at her. Fiyero dropped the flowers in shock. The man turned and looked at him.

Before either men could react, Elphie grabbed something from below the counter and sprayed at the robber. The man yelled as he tried to protect his face, but it was too late, and it did not help that Elphie got out of the counter and continue to spray at him as she chased after him. The robber pushed past Fiyero and out of the store and Elphie gave chase, only to give up when the contents in aerosol can ran out. She threw the canister after the fleeing man.

She went back to the store to find Fiyero crouching on the floor, his hands on his eyes.

"He's gone. You can get up now," she swiped playfully at him when he did not register her entrance. He looked up, and she swore when she saw that his eyes were red and tearing.

"Can you aim properly next time?" he suggested when she pulled him up.

She brought him behind the counter, and came back with a wet towel.

"This will teach you a lesson; never stand in the way of a robbery," she admonished him as she wiped his eyes with the towel.

"He didn't leave a message at the door," he joked. "Well, I suppose I did save you. You will never have the chance with that pepper spray if I have not distracted him."

"All he wants is the money."

He took the towel from her hand, finally able to see clearly again. "He has a gun and he is not masked. He can shoot you after the robbery to prevent you from picking him from a line up." He was serious.

She matched his expression. "My hero," she said, and then laughed it off as she stood away.

He waited in his car and rested his eyes while she completed her shift. She knocked on the window when her shift ended, and he unlocked the door. She looked at the bouquet of poppies tied with a black silk scarf with red roses that he had put on her seat. He had forgotten to give it to her earlier.

"They're beautiful," she simply said.

He drove in silence, watching her occasionally from the corner of his eyes. Her hair fell down, covering her face such that he could not see her expression. The flowers were in her arms, slightly bruised from the fall when he had dropped them. She touched the petals gently with her long fingers, their colour almost the same as the petals in the semi darkness of the car.

"Quit the job," he spoke.

"You don't own me," was her reply.

"You need to quit because it is not safe for you."

"Come on, you can get robbed even in your own house, rich boy. Besides, I need that job."

"I can…" he could not say it out. Somehow, he knew that she was not the kind of girl who would take money from another person.

"No," she replied calmly, as if she knew what he was trying to say.

"Then find another job," he spoke after a while.

"Only that job, that convenience store."

"Why?" Fiyero asked.

"He's the only store manager who does not care what is going on. For my drug dealings," she answered lightly.

He called her bluff. "You're lying."

"Ask me no question and I will tell you no lies, pretty boy," she replied.

She hopped out of the car when he stopped in front of the long winding staircase, and then turned back.

"Leave your car at home tomorrow," she said.

He looked at her, surprised. Was she trying to tell him that she did not want to see him anymore?

"You want to see where I live, don't you?"

He waited outside the back door at the appointed time the next night. He walked beside her as she removed her masquerade. She pulled the scarf out of her shirt, and folded it lengthwise until it was the width of her palm.

"Pretty boy," she beckoned and he stepped close to her. He recognised it then. It was the silk scarf that was used to tie the poppies the day before. She smiled at him and pressed the fabric against his eyes before she pulled it towards the back of his head, securing it with a double knot. The scarf was still warm from the heat of her body, and he could smell something that was a combination of soap and air conditioning and sweat – her scent after a long day at work. And he felt like pulling her close to him and burying his face at the crook of her neck.

She held his hand as they walked, telling him to be careful when there was a kerb or a pothole in front of him. They walked through alleys and traffic junctions, and there was at least once when they cut through a household or an enclosed area, the metallic sound of a pair of rusty hinges loud in the middle of the night.

"Where are we?" he asked as they cut through a patch of grass.

"A cemetery." She laughed. He had no idea if she was lying.

The last part of the journey required him to climb a metal ladder that she pulled down. And then he went through a small hole and landed his feet on hollow wooden floor and he knew that he was in a room.

He heard the click of a switch, and the sound of a generator as it whirled to life. The vision beyond the black scarf brightened.

"Here we are," she said as she removed the scarf.

He looked around. It was a small room. It was empty, except for a couch, a badly scratched coffee table and a wardrobe without doors. Bottles of mineral water were stacked up in one corner, next to a small room that he assumed to be the toilet. Taped against a wall were the poppies that he had given her. He turned around and saw a small window.

"Did we just come in through that window?" he gestured at the window.

"The door cannot be opened from outside. It lowers the rental," she explained.

There were many pieces of paper on the coffee table. Curiosity got better of him and he picked up a piece of paper.

"Can you read them?" Elphie asked. Her tone was light, but she stood tense.

He shook his head. "Looks gibberish to me." She relaxed.

She took out a six pack of beer from her tote bag.

"Help yourself. They're paid for," she said as she placed it on the table. He opened one.

She walked to the wardrobe and curled her hands at the hem of her shirt before she looked at him. He blushed and looked at the floor, the can in his hand, a dash of green at the corner of his eyes.

She changed into a shirt and shorts and joined him.

"Like this?" she gestured around as she opened another can of beer and took a swig. He laughed, "Impressive."

"The other side of the spectrum, rich kid."

"I think you can afford a better place than this," he guessed.

She shrugged. "I like it here. There's privacy. Everyone keeps to themselves and it's near to where I worked."

He looked at his watch. Their journey had taken more than an hour.

"I said I will show you where I live. I didn't say that I will let you know where I live," she smiled at his confusion. So she had led him to a detour.

He took out his handphone. No signal. There was no way for him to lock into his location. He sighed.

She worked on the papers as he drank his beer. He watched her as he played some game on his phone – she would dig through her pile of paper for a piece of information and then sometimes scribbled something on a smaller piece of paper. Sometimes she would think for a long time before mumbling something to herself. He sat there and watched her until she realised that he was looking at her.

"You're bored," she commented as she tried to stack the papers together. She then picked up one piece and folded it into the smallest size possible and put it into the pocket of her uniform.

"Secret mission?"

"Drug locations," she deadpanned. "Ready to go?" she asked as she stood up.

He followed suit and she took the scarf in her hands and reached behind him again, tying the knot behind him. It could be due to the beer, or the smallness of the room, but he could feel her so close to him, her thighs pressing against his, her fingers brushing against his hair, her breath on his cheek. And the next thing he knew, his hands skirted around her waist, lingering for a moment before they went under her shirt and he tilted his head, seeking her lips.

She responded immediately, her hand at the back of his head as she pressed her lips full against his. She muttered something that he could not hear and then kissed him again. Her kisses were slow, deliberate, but felt purposeful, as if she, too, had waited for this for a long time, had wanted this for a long time. One of her hands buried itself into his hair while other slipped down to his chest, clutching his shirt – Oz, he wanted so much to have her hand on his bare chest instead. It was as if she could hear his thoughts and she undid the buttons of his shirt before she slipped her hand inside, resting her fingers on the column of blue diamonds that was tattooed over his heart.

He could not see with the blindfold but he kissed his way down. He kissed her jaw, and then her neck, feeling her pulse as it throbbed against his lips. His hands clumsily pulled her shirt up and over her head. He touched her, feeling the gentle curves of her body, her small waist, the way he could feel her ribcage against her skin. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again, moulding her body against his until he could feel every single inch of her body. He slid his hands to her back and unhooked her bra before he closed his fingers over her small breasts, teasing her lightly with his thumbs before his mouth took over. He pulled her closer to him and they both fell onto the couch and he pulled down the blindfold.

She was on top, and the light from the generator casted shadows all over the place. Her hair fell across her shoulders and caressed his skin. Her skin was flushed, especially at the places where he had touched her, where he had kissed her, and he was glad to notice that he was not the only one who was breathing heavily. Her eyes were bright and he thought that she was so beautiful.

He tried to flip her over, but the couch was too small and he fell onto the floor instead.

She chuckled from her position from the couch as he lay gasping on the floor.

"Where's the bedroom?" he asked as he propped himself up on his elbows, embarrassed by his clumsiness.

Elphie tucked her hair behind her ear as she smiled slightly.

"This is the bedroom," she told him before she lowered her head and kissed him gently on his lips. The kiss was chaste, a great contrast to the earlier passion that she had displayed, and it left him dizzy and lightheaded.

He wanted more.

Fiyero sat up and she placed a hand behind his neck as she kissed him again, deeply this time. An image came to him - he was a merman, out of the waters for the first time and being kissed by a mortal green girl.

They stayed in the room for a long time.

It was a most uncomfortable night.

It was the most memorable night of his life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**A/N I am taking some liberties with medical possibilities in this fic, so please bear with me.**

He loved her.

He knew it without a doubt.

Well, not in the way that he used that word previously. Not the way he meant it when he whispered it into the ears of his previous girlfriends, his past conquests. His past relationships were always the same – the girls were always beautiful, they were always popular. They went on dates and attended parties. They were always the perfect couple in any occasion, the handsome bachelor and his beautiful partner. He would shower her with gifts, and she would keep him company in the lonely nights. For some of them, they would hint heavily on an engagement after some time, and that was when he would usually end the relationship.

She was different.

He did not need to go parties with her. He did not need other people to tell him how beautiful she was. His mood lifted the moment he saw her (even if she was in a bad mood). He felt alive just by being with her, even if it was something as mundane as her doing her work while he played games on his handphone as he sat next to her.

He never told her that he loved her.

He did not need to. He did not need that word to confirm how he felt. And he got a feeling that she did not like to hear that word.

He knew her so well. He learnt how to interpret her moods, her likes and her dislikes. How a growl need not necessary meant that she was angry and how a smile might not mean that she was happy. When was a maybe a no, when was it a yes and when was it really a maybe. He knew her habits by heart – the sequence that she took off her masquerade after work, the sequence that she took when she reached home – peeling off her clothes piece by piece and leaving them on the floor. She would stretch her limbs as she stood in front of the wardrobe before she changed into her own clothes. It was not an act of seduction. He had thought it was and had touched her once, and she had glared at him and then ignored him for most of the night (after calling him by a few unflattering names). It was just a ritual, her way of shedding off the toxins that she accumulated from the hours at work – the routine, mundane work, the rude customers and the unappreciative manager.

He knew how she liked to be touched, what sent her over the edge. Yet he knew so little about her. He only knew her name and the place that she worked. He did not know where she lived, despite going there almost every night (except for Mondays). She led him on a different route each night, blindfolding him so that he could not recognise the landmarks. He knew that the joke about the cemetery was not a joke – he fell once, and his hands came into contact with the cold hard stone and he could smell the lingering fragrance of the incense that was burnt a few hours earlier. On certain days, he would walk carefully as he tried to memorise the route, tried to decipher where they had passed by based on the sounds and the smells. On other days, he would pretend to be clumsy, stumbling over the smallest pebbles. He would fall into her arms and she would laugh. He would wrap an arm around her and lingered his fingers where they should not be. It would take all their will to contain themselves before they reached her place. On nights like this, the first thing that he did when they entered her apartment was to yank off the blindfold before he pushed her against the wall next to that small window and made love to her. Every night, before the night was over, she would blindfold again him and led him back to where the convenience store and his car was.

He knew that it was not just the sex, because there was once when he turned up as usual and she was not there. He panicked. He did not know where to find her and her manager was not helpful at all. He spent half the night on the streets looking for her and went to that drop off point with the winding staircase several times. It was only the next night when she turned up for work and she told him that she had some prior engagement that she was evasive about. It drove him crazy that she refused to remain contactable and refused to accept his gift of a hand phone. But she was nice enough to let him sat on the floor behind the counter and took a nap while she worked her shift because he refused to go home.

The only gift that she was accepted from him was the bed. The beds actually. He knew that there was no way for him to bring in a real mattress, so he bought one of those gymnasium mats and stuffed it into a large camping backpack that he had (something that he had bought and never used).

"I am not going to keep having sex on that small couch," he told her.

"Then don't," she replied, and then laughed when she saw the disappointment on his face.

She wrinkled her nose when he unrolled the mat in front of her and laughed when he informed her that he would bring a hundred more so that he could stack it up to become a comfortable bed.

"And then I will put a pea at the bottom and I will know if you are the princess that I have been waiting for," he told her and then she was not laughing anymore.

Of course he did not bring over one hundred mats.

There were also things that she revealed bit by bit.

He knew that she was not peddling drugs. He knew it because she hated drugs with a vengeance. Because of what happened to her best friend.

"She's beautiful," she told him. "Fair skin, golden hair, blue eyes. She is one of the kindest person I have ever met. She is the one who will share her last piece of bread with you or give you her umbrella when it is raining even if it means that she will get wet. But she is so naïve, so gullible, so hopeful about her future."

"What happened?" he asked, his finger twirling her silky hair as she rested her face on his chest.

"The popular boys in her school," she snorted. "One day she told me that one of them had asked her out on a date. She was so excited. She always imagined that one day one of them will sweep her off her feet and they will get married and live happily ever after. She didn't come back until past midnight, her hair and clothes in a mess. She only remembered going to a fancy restaurant with him and had no recollection of what happened afterwards. She only found out what happened when the videos surfaced all over the internet. There were at least ten of them, doing whatever they wanted with her, and she was so high with the drugs that they had given her…." She tightened her grip on him and pressed her mouth so hard against his skin that he almost did not hear the rest. "She locked herself in her room that night; she was so determined to die that she slit her wrists and hanged herself in her bedroom."

He knew that she hated the Wizard.

"Did you see the headline?" she raged. "He closed down another hospital!" She waved her hand and accidentally hit his arm. She did not even apologise.

"Cool down!"

"I'm cool. He is an asshole!"

"You'll wake up the neighbours."

"They're either dead or drunk," she told him, but she did lower her volume.

"That hospital is illegal. It is violating the laws, Elphie," he tried to talk sense into her.

"What laws?" she asked him through clenched teeth.

"Sanitation laws, patent laws, labour laws, to name a few. They hired illegal workers. They used drugs that had not been tested for use. That building is designated to be abolished and they are occupying it illegally. There is no electricity, no proper water piping." He regretted buying the newspapers when he was waiting for her and regretted letting her read it.

"I know that hospital, Yero. I used to visit that place. They have been operating there for years. So what if they hire illegal workers? These are Quadlings and Munchkins who go to EC because they are attracted to the big city. And then they flow over to Gillikin because they cannot find jobs. The work keeps them busy. What can they do otherwise? No one else will hire them. How do you expect them to survive? Rob the folks? Break into shops? Anyone who goes there knows what they are getting into. Medical care at a fraction of the cost. Not everyone can afford to go to a proper 'accredited' hospital like you," she curved her fingers to indicate quotes.

"Medical care at a fraction of the cost? I suppose it also mean a fraction of the chance of survival."

"And what is the alternative, can you tell me? The alternative is zero chance of survival." She looked at him imploringly.

"Just go away," she told him as she turned her back to him, her face in her hands.

But he did not, not because he had no idea how to go back to the parts of the city that he was familiar without her guiding him blindfolded, but because he did not want to.

"He's the most corrupted ruler in history," she commented on another day. "Ten percent tax increase to help the poor? Oz knows how much goes into his pocket! I didn't see any improvement after the last round of tax increase."

"He's the ruler. He's the one we voted in. We have to trust him," he tried to reason with her.

"Yeah, sure," her voice was dripping with sarcasm. "An opponent who was suddenly caught by the Gale Force for illegal money laundering, another who graciously bowed out because he realised that the Wizard was the best candidate. And don't even get me started on that last candidate whom no one had ever heard of before the elections. And for the record, I did not vote for him."

There were more peaceful days of course.

"I believe that you have domesticated me," Fiyero told her one day. He was seated on the couch while she was on the floor, sandwiched between his outstretched legs and using his thighs as armrests as she wrote out a list in her coded writing.

"Why? Did I put you into a pen?" she asked, the corners of her mouth upturned.

"It is a Saturday, Elphie. And instead of partying, here I am, sitting on your couch trying to solve a crossword puzzle. Can you give me a fifteen-letter word that means 'sneakily'?"

"Surreptitiously," she replied without hesitation. He wrote it down. "Then go and party. I am not stopping you."

He put down the crossword puzzle and bent down and kissed her hair, taking in the fragrance of the shampoo that he was so familiar with by now.

"No," he told her gently.

"See? I do not domesticate you. _You_ domesticated yourself."

She never went out with him.

"It is going to be a great party. There will be live music, finger food, drinks. You'll love my friends," he tried to persuade her.

"No."

"Why? You never go anywhere with me. It's either here or the convenience store. It's like you can only exist in these two places. What will happen if I bring you out?"

"I'll puff. Disappear," she sounded half-serious.

"Are you ashamed to be with me?"

She shook her head. "I'll embarrass you."

"No you won't."

"I am not supposed to exist," she gave another excuse.

He placed his hands on her arms and rubbed against her skin with his thumbs, as if he was trying to rub her away, to erase her existence.

"You exist!" he declared in mock surprise after a while. "So why do you say that you don't exist?"

"I don't exist officially in any of the Wizard's database. There is no record of me anywhere. You won't be able to find any electronic transaction under me anywhere. The more people know of my existence the more dangerous it will be for me."

"You're an illegal immigrant?" His eyes grew wide, and she gave him a look that told him that she was wondering why he was so stupid.

"I was born and grew up in EC. I just don't have the papers. I don't go to school. Everything I do is by cash. It's a blessing in disguise. It helps with what I am doing."

"And what are you doing?"

She held his face with her hands, daring him to look away.

"'To make Oz a better place for everyone'," she quoted the Wizard's latest campaign slogan. "And we mean it."

The word 'we' triggered a feeling that Fiyero had never felt before, and it was a few days before he realised what it was. It was jealousy, jealousy toward a group of nameless, faceless people who existed in her life before him, who knew more about her than him. He began to mark her - one on the skin where the neck met the shoulder, anyone could see that so long as her neck was not covered up; one on her inner thigh, near to her groin, it said _she's mine_ to whoever who would see it. He soothed it with his tongue, hoping that no one would see it.

"Tell me more about what you do every day," he tried his luck on another day.

"Me? You know, I man the cashier, check the stocks, shelve the goods…."

"You know what I mean. The things that you do when I am not around. The things that you do to make Oz a better place."

She sat up.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I want to help."

She laughed at the absurdity.

"What?" he was offended. She shook her head. "This is not a game, Fiyero."

He pouted and turned his head.

She called his name, but he refused to look at her, not even when she straddled him and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Well, maybe there is something that you can help me with," she suggested for a while.

Fiyero looked at her, wondering what it was. She simply kissed him as she pulled his shirt over his head, distracting him, and the topic was forgotten for the moment.

* * *

"I got to go back today," she told him at the end of her shift one day, referring to her apartment. She never called it 'home' and Fiyero could understand why.

"You mean 'we'," he corrected her as he looped his arm through hers.

"Me," she corrected him. "You cannot go back with me today."

"Why?"

"You know that I can't tell you," she shoved her hands into the pockets of her pants. Fiyero smiled to himself. A few months ago, she would have given a smart alec remark, but now she just simply admitted that she could not tell him. He considered it a major step in their relationship, that she no longer needed to hide anything from him; she simply told him.

"What about tomorrow?" he asked.

"I don't know. Go out and enjoy yourself, party-boy. Go get a girlfriend and get a life," she tossed the words over her head as she walked away.

"My house is always available if yours isn't," he called after her.

He turned up the next day. She was not surprised.

"Let's go to your house," she told him.

"I thought you will never go anywhere with me," he was surprised, and secretly glad.

"I've changed my mind. So are we going?"

He was not going to argue with her of course.

They took a cab to his apartment. She left her masquerade on in the cab. His apartment was situated in one of the prime districts in Shiz Town, on top of a small hill. He had a private lift.

The lift took them to the top floor. He opened the door and let her in, looking at her expression as she took in the apartment. It was a one bedroom with a small kitchen and a living room that was big enough to host a small party. At one wall was a large wall-mounted TV with a comprehensive entertainment system below it. There was also a bar counter at the side, its shelves filled with different kind of liquor.

She walked across the living room, not turning her head, but somehow he knew that she saw everything. She walked out into the balcony and looked at the scenery. The balcony faced the buildings of Shiz University, some distance away. The historical buildings of Shiz could be seen even in the dark, intermixed with the newer, taller buildings. At a corner, the old bell tower of Shiz could be seen among the old low buildings. The spotlights shone on the bell tower, casting it in an eerie light.

For a moment, he wondered how she viewed it.

"It must be great to study in a place like Shiz," she said. He could not figure out if she was being sarcastic, but he took it at face value. He joined her at the balcony and pulled her to him.

"Would you like something to eat?" he asked. "I can cook."

"You can cook?" The disbelief in her voice was obvious.

He chuckled. "Instant noodles. I have at least five different flavours in my cupboard." She laughed, a genuine laughter that lifted his mood.

He cooked for her, adding frozen vegetables and frozen meat.

"Not that bad," she admitted as she finished the noodles on her bowl.

She helped him in washing up. He looked at her as she dried the plates. It felt unreal. For so long he was always in her world; meeting her at the convenience store, going to her apartment. This was the first time that she was at a place that he frequented, in his world.

"Why you grinning like a fool?" she asked him, a curious look on her face.

"You're real," he replied like a fool, the grin still on his face.

She rolled her eyes.

"You're real," he repeated again. "You did not go 'puff'," he emphasised with a gesture with his fingers. Elphie smirked as she finally understood what he was referring to. She did not protest when he lifted her onto the kitchen top and kissed her deeply, his fingers straying to the buttons of her uniform.

"Are you drunk? Did you drown your noodles with alcohol?" she teased him as she pulled his shirt over his head, her hands leaving wet imprints on his chest as she kissed him back.

"There's a room that you have not shown me," she whispered against his ear as she wrapped her arms and legs around him.

They stayed in the bedroom, on the comfortable bed with its white bedsheets and fluffy pillows.

"Let's come back here tomorrow," she suggested.

"You like it here?"

"Maybe." And he could not figure out if it was a yes, a no or a maybe.

"Can you stay?" he asked.

She nodded as she snuggled closer to him. Her hands moved to his body, giving butterfly touches, making him want her again.

She was gone when he woke up the next morning.

He turned up at the convenience store with his car the next night. She got in without a word.

There was no supper this time, and he showed off his entertainment system, making her watch some movie filled with endless scenes of high-speed chases and explosive actions, the sound effects sounding like mini fireworks around them. She laid her head on his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her.

When the credits rolled, he looked at her and realised that she had fallen asleep. His fingers touched her face, and suddenly he knew that this was what he want. To be with her every day, to have their meals together, watch TV together on a cosy couch.

"Hey," he woke her up.

"Show's over?"she mumbled, and then stretched her limbs as she yawned.

"Mmm. So can I ask you why are you here?"

"Here?"

"My place. Two nights in a row."

"I have visitors staying over," she leaned onto him, still sleepy.

"Your family?"

She shook her head. "But they are as close to a family as I can ever have."

"Can I meet them?" He tried his luck.

That woke her up.

She pushed him away so fast it caught him by surprise.

"You want to meet my family?"

He sat up as he looked at her.

"Yes of course. We have been together for so long. I want to meet your family, your friends. I want to know more about you."

"That's funny." She did not look amused.

"I'm not kidding." He had never thought of it, but now that he mentioned it, he realised how true it was. "I never wanted to meet any of my girlfriend's family," he told her, hoping that she would catch its significance. "Until you come along."

"Don't!" she sprang back. "I'm supposed to be a fling, Yero. You are supposed to a fickle minded bachelor who hop from bed to bed and change your companion like ….like clothes."

"I'm serious about you, Elphie. In fact…. I will like it very much if you will move in, with me." He reached out for her.

She recoiled as if he was something repulsive. His fingers stayed in the air for a moment and then he pulled back as he looked at her, the hurt in his eyes.

She stood in front of him, her arms around her. Her eyes were wide, and she looked like someone who was caught in the headlights, moments before the car impacted on the body.

"You're lying," she whispered. "Tell me you are not serious. Tell me that I am just a fling. It's just a fad, to fuck the green girl. I am just the flavour of the month."

"It's been eight months," he reminded her. And then he told her something that he had never told her because he suspected that it would freak her out. "I love you."

She bolted.

She yanked open the door so hard that it slammed against the wall and ran out, forgetting (or perhaps, ignoring) the fact that she was clad in just his T-shirt and shorts.

He went after her, in time to see her abandon the lift that could not be activated without the access card. She went for the fire escape stairway, triggering the alarm. He ran after her, but she was so fast that she had disappeared from his sight when he reached the ground floor.

The security guard at the counter looked at him, and then at his bare feet.

He went early to her workplace the next night. She was at the counter, and he went in just in time to see one of her 'regular customers' who received information from her – the man with the child.

The man looked at Fiyero as he entered, at the small bouquet of flowers that he held in his hand, and then he looked at Elphie. Elphie looked away, avoiding his eyes, and the man left with his child.

She moved to one of the shelves and pretended to be busy with rearranging the products, turning them one by one so that the product name faced the aisle.

"Elphie," he called her name, his hand gently touching her arm. "What did I do wrong?"

She ignored him, and of course he was not surprised. But he knew that she was listening.

"What did I do wrong?" he repeated again, softly so that the manager would not come out from his office. "Boy meets girl. They get together. Boy declares his love and wants girl to move in with him. What is wrong with that? Is it because it's me? "

Her hand paused, and she turned around, taking off her sunglasses and pulling down her mask.

"You choose the wrong girl, rich boy. You should have stuck to your high society crowd and your high maintenance girlfriends. I bet that they are begging to move into your apartment. People like me don't play this game."

"What game?"

"This sickening game you called love."

He was stunned. "It's not a game."

"So you really think that we are in a relationship?"

"We are." He stretched out his hand with the flowers.

She snatched them away and threw them into the nearby dustbin.

"Then I am dumping you. And I don't want to see you again."

* * *

He did not look for her for the next few days. He went to school, went home and slept. He reached out for her when he woke up in the middle of the night, and it was a while before he remembered that she never came back with him.

And then he could not take it any longer.

He borrowed a car from a classmate – someone who drove the ugliest and oldest car in Shiz. In exchange, that classmate was able to drive his convertible for that night. The grin on the friend's face was priceless.

He drove past the convenience store. Elphie was at the counter, carrying out a transaction. As the car passed by the window slowly, she looked up, as if she could sense someone staring at her. Most probably she did. He ducked and drove on.

The next day, he parked the car nearby and waited for her to knock off. She exited by the back door on time and then walked away. He waited until she had almost disappeared from sight before he came out from the shadows. He followed her at a distance, his sports shoes making no sound on the asphalt. He kept his head down, his hood covering his hair and held a bottle in his hand, pretending to be someone out for a drink at night. She took off her glasses, mask, scarf and cap, and ran her hands through her hair. It made him felt like catching up so that he could run _his_ hands through her hair and kissed her.

She took what was most probably the shortest route back to her place. After about thirty minutes, they reached a building so run-down he was surprised that it was occupied. The layer of mould on the peeling wall was so thick it seemed to glow in the dark. There were small windows from the second floor upwards but most of the rooms were dark. He saw her climbed up the fire escape and climbed into a window on the third floor that was lit. He waited for ten minutes before he carefully made his way up, his feet making no sound on the metal steps. He reached the third floor and in one swift move, placed his hands on the window frame and swung his body inside.

He was greeted by the sight of three persons staring at him. Elphie was on the floor, in the midst of administering to a gunshot wound on a man's shoulder. There was a blonde with an angelic face next to him. The man looked at Fiyero and then quickly brought up a gun with his good hand.

Elphie's hands was on his half a second later.

"Don't. He's a friend," she whispered to the injured man before she stood up and went over.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed.

"What is this? Why is he injured?" Fiyero asked.

"Is he a cop? Or someone from the Gale Force?" the man asked.

"Shut up, Av!" Elphie turned and barked.

The man, Av, quieted, and the blonde moved closer to him, whimpering softly as her companion wrapped a protective arm around her, the gun still in his gun.

"You shouldn't be here. You got to go," Elphie told him. "Please," she added.

"What about him?" Fiyero asked. "He's injured. He should go to a hospital."

Elphie gave a bitter laugh.

"The hospital that we usually go to has been closed down, remember?"

"Then go to another hospital. You are not a doctor, Elphie. You do not have the necessary skills."

Av looked at the two of them and then he grinned.

"I get it now. He likes you, Fae. That is why he is here. He is the reason why you are not paying attention during discussions and why your knickers are always in a knot and why you always have hickeys on you nowadays."

"Shut up, Av, or I swear I will shoot your other shoulder."

"Touche," he replied and then turned to the blonde. "Our Fae is in love, Lin."

The blonde giggled and gave a vacant smile.

Elphie turned Fiyero towards the door.

"You really got to go. And promise me you will not come back again and you will not mention this to anyone."

"Why?"

She looked at him, exasperated. "Because he is a wanted man. We broke into a hospital a few days ago for the medication and he was shot by one of the guards. Do you understand? This is not a game, Fiyero."

"We?"

"Him and me." She saw his glance at the blonde. "Not her. We don't get her involved in anything dangerous. She's too simpleminded to know how to take care of herself in times of danger, not since…" she trailed off and then he knew. The blonde with the beautiful face like an angel was her best friend who had tried to attempt suicide. She never died, but the unsuccessful attempt had turned her into the simple, giggling girl that she was now.

"So please, please go. It is not a good time for you to be seen here, to be seen with me."

"Then when is a good time?" he asked. He wanted her to give him a date. He wanted her to promise that she would see him soon. Even though he finally knew what she did during her free time.

She looked at him for a while and then reached out and touched his face.

"You're silly," she told him, a sad smile on her face.

"Maybe," he replied.

"Just go. I will look for you once things died down." She kissed him on his lips and then pushed him out of the door that could only be opened from inside.

He still drove by the convenience store every night, using a newly bought second hand (or maybe fifth hand) car instead.

And every night, he would park across the road and stay in the car and watch her from where he was. Looked at her as she worked behind the counter or moved along the aisles.

And then all hell broke loose one night.

He was a few blocks away when he noticed the flashing blue and red lights that bounced off the buildings. He contemplated turning around but decided against it. He drove towards the convenience store and saw the smoke. The area was cordoned off, and there were many police around. There was a crowd too, looking miserable in the cold night but yet unwilling to leave.

He parked one block away and walked towards the scene.

The windows of the convenience store were broken, smashed. There were smoke coming out of the place. At first he thought that it was a fire, and then he saw two Gale Forcers, in masks, dragging a fat person between them and threw him on the floor. The man hit the ground on his back, and the crowd gasped as they saw the single bullet shot through his head. It was the manager. Another two came out from the store with another dead person, a customer. A few more came out, empty handed. They took off their masks and starred wearily at the crowd. Fiyero held his breath.

A captain of the Gale Force approached the group.

"Is that it?"

One of the Gale Forcers shook his head. "There was a cashier, but she was very quick. She managed to duck all our shots and just ran out."

Fiyero pushed through the crowd and ran off.

He ran all the way to Elphie's place. He went up to the third floor and climbed into the window. The whole place was dark.

"Elphie?" he called her name. There was no response.

He reached out his hand and walked slowly, searching for the power generator. He soon found it and activated the machine with a simple flick of the switch. The room slowly glowed into light.

He looked around. There was no one in the room. The papers, table, beds, everything were still there.

He looked at her wardrobe. All her clothes were still there. The safety kit that she used for her friend was there too. She must not have the time to come back after the Gale Force attacked the convenience store. He remembered the look on the manager's face, frozen in death. He hoped that Elphie would not be caught.

He stuffed her papers into his pocket. Maybe the papers could offer some clues to her whereabouts, or maybe he could return them to her when he found her. He looked at the place one last time, to make sure that he did not miss anything. He then placed his hand on the door. She would look for him. She had promised him that.

He opened the door, to find a group of uniform men outside.

The Gale Force moved in swiftly, their movements synchronised. One of the Gale Forcers struck him on his back before he could lift up his hands or protest. He fell to the ground and felt the pain, but either the pain subsided or the subsequent blows numbed it – he could not tell. Something dark splattered on the floor, and it was a while before he realised that it was his blood, so much blood. He looked at the blood and wondered if he would have enough time to clean it up before Elphie came back. He never had the chance to find out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

He was later told that he had been in Southstairs for six years.

That was the longest time that he had ever stayed in any place – he had never stayed in the same apartment for more than one year and he had never stayed in the same relationship for more than five months (except for Elphie). There seemed to be wanderlust ingrained in him, perhaps what was passed down by his ancestors, the travelling Arjikis, who used to make an annual sojourn to the Thousand Year Grasslands every summer even after they had wrestled the fortress that was called Kiamo Ko from the then Wizard. It was now a tradition for some, a sabbatical of two weeks (instead of the whole summer) when the descendants of the Arjiki warriors would leave their gadgets and luxury at home and trekked their ways through the grasslands, tracing the route taken by their warrior ancestors hundreds of years ago.

In his later years, he would casually drop the name of _that place_ during his conversation, calling it home. "Oh, I lived in Southstairs for six years", he would say, making it sound like an upscale district that was only open to the selected few (which, in a morbid sense, it was). He usually did that when he was bored in a social function. The shocked expressions on those new acquaintances and the way they fumbled in their replies were priceless and would keep him in high spirits for the rest of the night.

He remembered being beaten up by the Gale Force in Elphie's place. There were so many of them that he knew it was a lost cause the moment he saw them. He tried to fight back of course, but there was nothing much he could do when the first blow he received brought him down. He lost conscious, and then woke up Oz knew how many days later in a small cell, with excruciating pain all throughout his body and a skull piercing headache. He groaned, and a soldier came in, not a Gale Forcer, as this one was clad in a black uniform, and he thanked Fiyero for not dying on him, for there was a betting pool set up and he had won quite a fair sum of money.

"Welcome to Southstairs," the guard said as his parting words with a sneer on his face.

His 'home' in Southstairs was a tiny two by two cell, just one of the many along an endless stretch. There was no window in sight and the place was lit by badly maintained yellow lamps that had turned dim over the years. The lights were on throughout the whole day, leaving him disorientated. He had no idea if it was day or night, if only three hours had passed or a full day was gone. There was no mat and no mattress. One could choose to sleep on the cold hard floor or lean against the cold hard wall. There was a little hole at a corner, with no partition, which meant no privacy, and more than once, he found himself doing his business and then looking up to see the prisoner in the next cell pressing himself against the bars separating the two cells, a grin on his face as he watched the younger man.

Initially he had thought that it was a prison (or a section of the prison) just for males, but that he knew he was wrong a few days later when he heard a woman begging the guards to stop whatever they were doing. The guards laughed, and her loud pleas were slowly reduced into soft whimpers of pain as the hours passed.

He held hopes at the beginning that it was just a nightmare, that he would wake up one day and it would be just another school day. Or his parents would somehow find out and bail him out. Or Elphie would break into Southstairs and save him. But as time passed, his hopes faded, until he realised that he would be stuck in this place for a long time, maybe forever, until the day he died.

Like all the prisoners in Southstairs, one of his legs would be chained to the wall. At first, he would be let out every day – not in the good sense. They would bring him to another room, where a guard would question him on the whereabouts of his resistance accomplices. He almost laughed out loud the first time he heard it. His Elphie a resistance member? They would ask him the same questions over and over again – who were his accomplices, where was their hideout, what were they planning. Fiyero had no idea of course, and that would make them angry and then the beating would start. Sometimes, they would play good-cop-bad-cop, with one of the guards pretending to be his friend, to help him and to protect him from the wrath from other guards, so long as he gave them the information that they wanted. On other days, they would taunt him, telling him that they had been to his home in the city, that they peed on his leather sofa and crashed his convertible. They showed him some of the things that they had taken from his place – a hand crafted limited edition watch that one of them strapped onto his own wrist and proclaimed it his, a photo of him and his parents (at which point he feared for their safety, and at the same time, he was grateful that Elphie had never taken a picture with him), his collection of wine.

They smashed his kneecap using his baseball bat, and then broke the other leg, most probably within the same month. Maybe they realised that they would not be able to get any information out of him, or maybe other newer, most 'interesting' prisoners came in, but soon those sessions grew fewer, and Fiyero was left in his cell for days doing nothing but reminiscing the good old days and listening to the mad ramblings of the other prisoners.

Sometime later, he found his sight failing. He had no idea what was the cause. At first things looked a bit dimmer, and he would squint his eyes, thinking that perhaps another light had gone out along the corridor. And as time passed, he realised that he could see less and less. Panic overtook him. He called for help.

One of the guards went into his cell and laughed at him when he asked to see a doctor. The guard kicked him, and laughed when Fiyero managed to dodge at the last moment.

"I guess you are not that blind after all," he jeered. A hope flared up, and Fiyero wished that perhaps it would soon pass. But like the first hope, it soon died when his vision deteriorated to the point where he could only distinguished the brightest of the lights, and the only colours were in his dreams.

And then, on the day after forever, something happened.

He was in his cell as usual (where else could he be?), when his acute hearing announced the arrival of two guards. The metallic cling of a lock being unlocked and Fiyero turned towards the sound. It had been some time since the guards had pulled him out for sport, and he wondered what it would be this time. Will it be punching? Kicking? Or a combination?

They removed the chain on his leg and jerked him up roughly.

"Go," one of them commanded as they pushed him. He stumbled towards the direction that they wanted him to go, his hands reaching for the bars of the cell. His fingers found the cold, rusty metal and he swung left, pacing his footsteps to be in line with the guards. He had moved along the corridors so many times after he turned blind that he could match his pace with the guards' strides and made his way to his destination without falling, unless someone stuck out a foot deliberately.

They walked in silence, and then Fiyero frowned when he realised that they had walked beyond the usual rooms that they usually went to.

Curiosity finally got better of him.

"Where are we going?" he rasped.

"You're free," the guard on his left said. "Lucky you."

"Lucky?" the guard on his right chuckled.

Free?

They walked to the end of the corridor and they led him up the stairs, letting him felt the wall as he climbed up. He had not walked such a distance for a long time and his legs began to ache. But he moved on, shuffling one leg after another. The guards led him through another long corridor and then he could feel the difference in the air. The air here was lighter, and he knew that he was in a ventilated place.

He was going to be free.

Another few doors later, and he could begin to hear the muffled sounds from outside.

Free.

One of the guards grabbed his arm suddenly, halting his progress and a sudden fear gripped him. What happened if there was a mistake and he was not supposed to be freed? For a second he contemplating making a mad rush for the exit and then he remembered that he had no idea where was the exit – he could not see.

He heard the sounds of papers – most probably documents – being exchanged. Someone tapped on a keyboard using two fingers for what seemed to be an eternity before an almost inaudible jab released a magnetic catch and the door (yes, the door was right in front of him) swung open.

And then suddenly there was so much sounds. A bird chirping. The sound of leaves tumbling across the ground. The distant sounds of traffic. The whispers of the trees as the breeze passed by. The platter of rain. He could even 'see' hazy brightness with his eyes.

He was free.

A smile touched his lips, and then one of the guards shoved him out of the door and the door shut behind him. And then the smile was gone.

He was free, but where could he go?

For a moment, he wanted to turn around and bang on the door and beg them to let him in again. Fear gripped him. He could not see. He had no money. Most probably he would tumble down a flight of stairs and broke his neck, or cross a road and got knocked down by a car.

He stood there for some time, and then he took a deep breath.

A step at a time.

He stretched out his hand and found a railing that sloped down.

A flight of stairs.

He moved closer to the railing, and tested out the ground in front of him with one bare foot.

One step down.

His left foot followed. And then right again, and left again.

Somehow that last step brought him out from a shelter and into the rain. The rain soaked through his thin clothes in seconds. The rain was cold and it chilled his body. But it warmed his heart. He laughed, a strange sound that he had not heard for a long time. He took another step and nearly slipped on the wet cement. He tightened his hands on the railing.

"There he is!" The voice of a young boy and the sound of footsteps. The sound of two pairs of footsteps, one pair light and flighty, and the other heavier and hurried.

The next thing he knew, something shielded him from the pouring rain and an arm wrapped around his waist. She whispered his name.

"Elphie?" he asked, though there was no way he could be mistaken about that voice.

She exhaled a soft laugh. "Let's get out of the rain."

She led him down the steps slowly and made their way across a wide courtyard to a road where a vehicle awaited, its engine running.

"Is this him?" a male voice asked. Fiyero sensed, rather than saw, her nodded her head as the arm around him shifted slightly.

"But he's blin –". He supposed a glare from her silenced the man.

He heard the sound of the boy as he climbed into the vehicle. The boy had been making so much noise, running to and fro in the courtyard, edging them on, that Fiyero had no idea if he would ever stop. He heard the sound of a palm slapping a vinyl seat.

"Come on, faster." The boy admonished Fiyero for his slowness, only to be chided by Elphie.

"Liir," she called him name menacingly and he kept quiet. But it only worked for a while and he opened his mouth again as Fiyero moved into the vehicle.

"Watch your head," the boy, Liir, warned as he pulled at his hand, undeterred by the fact that the hand that he held had not been washed for a very long time.

"You stink," Liir declared with a nasal voice (Fiyero imagined that he had pinched his nose) when his odour threatened to overwhelm the occupants of the vehicle after the door was closed.

"He really needs a bath, Mommy," he whispered in a conspiring tone to the woman in the vehicle.

Mommy.

Fiyero heart sank. He wondered if the driver was her husband.

The three of them sat together at the back of the vehicle. The child spoke, switching back and forth between various topics and questions. Elphie answered them patiently. Fiyero tried to stay awake, to make sense of their conversation, but the gentle movement of the vehicle lulled him to sleep and before he knew it, Elphie was shaking him and Liir was bouncing up and down the seat.

"We're home, we're home!" he shouted as he tried to push Fiyero out of the vehicle.

She helped him down the van, for that was what it was, and the driver drove away. She placed a hand under his arm, and he was reminded of the past, when she would blindfold him and lead him to her place. It felt like another lifetime and the irony did not escape him. It used to be just a game, and now he was truly blind.

She led him a short distance and up a flight of stairs before she dropped her hand.

"Key," she explained, as if she understood the loss that he had felt when she broke their contact. She fished out her keys, and Fiyero heard the sound of metal against metal as she unlocked a door in front of them.

"Showertime!" Liir declared as he ran into the room the moment the door was opened. "Shall I prepare the bathtub, Mommy?"

Elphie laughed. "No, that is your baby bath tub. It is too small for him."

"Rubber ducky?"

"No!" Amusement laced her answer.

She led him into the shower – the floor was slightly damp – and stripped him of his clothes, never bothering to ask him if he could bath on his own. He supposed the answer was obvious. He thought of how he looked now, dirty, unkempt, with all the scars and the malnourishment and he felt embarrassed that she had to see this. But she said nothing and turned on the shower, testing the water on her own hand before she sprayed it on his.

"Is this warm enough?" she asked. Fiyero could only nod.

She washed him, once, twice and then a third time, the only sound in the shower being the running of the water. Liir waited outside and alternate between hopping on his feet and complaining that they were taking too long - he had to use the toilet. He kept at that until he could not wait anymore. He ran in and urinated and then ran out again.

"He can be a handful sometimes," she apologised, breaking the silence, as she wrapped a towel around his head and dried his hair before she moved downwards. He remembered the way she used to touch him, her hands across his body as she kissed his skin. And now he was reduced to nothing but a blind person, more helpless than a child.

"I'm not a child," the words came out harsher than he expected.

Her hands froze.

"What?"

"I am not helpless. I can do this myself. I don't need your sympathy," he told her as he grabbed the towel and threw it sideways and it landed… somewhere.

He felt something on his face - her fingers. It was such a foreign feeling, her fingertips gentle on his face.

"Fiyero," her voice was softer, softer than ever. She had never spoken to him this way. "Yero, I know you can do this yourself. I know that you will be able to take care of yourself, but now…."

He interrupted her.

"How long have I been blind?"

There was a silence before she replied.

"I don't know. You've been gone for six years but I don't know when you lost your sight."

Six years.

Liir was playing with his toy cars when he heard a sudden funny sound from the bathroom, as if someone ran out of air suddenly. He tried to continue playing, but curiosity got better of him and he tip toed towards the bathroom and peeped in. What greeted him was a strange sight. The stranger was still naked and wet, but Mommy was not bathing him anymore. Instead, she had her arms around him. His face was on the crook of her neck and his whole body shook uncontrollably. Liir had never seen a grown man cry and he slinked away, somehow knowing that it was not the time to interrupt and give one of his smart alec comments.

* * *

Elphie ran a small grocery business from the ground floor of the building.

"I'm my own boss now," she said with pride.

Liir went to a school nearby. After school, he would either play with his friends or come back and do his homework on the small table that she set up at the back of the shop.

And now that table had a new occupant – Fiyero. Elphie brought him down every day and made him sit there so that she could keep an eye on him when Liir was in school. She made him practise the use of his walking stick when there was no customer in the shop, or she would go through the book for the blind with him, her fingers guiding his across the embossed dots.

"He's a friend," she explained to a regular customer. "A casualty of The War," she added.

He asked her about The War that night when he had changed into his pyjamas, a long sleeve shirt and a pair of pants with elastic band. That was what he wore nowadays, simple clothing with no zippers, buttons or laces. Elphie had promised that she had clothes with buttons and zippers waiting for him. She would let him wear them once she thought that he was ready. His walking stick was next to his bed.

"The Wizard tried to break up the resistance groups," she told him. "It was all very hush hush at the beginning. Someone accused of breaking the law. Another member disappeared while he was on a road trip. And then they gained momentum. They took away a mother when the whole family were sitting down for dinner. They dragged away a father when he was in a park, leaving his baby unattended. They arrested a lover when he turned up at the wrong place…" Her voice trailed off, and he knew who she was referring to.

She continued. "It got to the point where they were jumping on shadows, arresting anyone and everyone on the basis that they were against the Wizard. There was a public outcry when the Gale Force shot dead a grandfather who was at an amusement park in Munchkinland with his grandchildren. The public protested. There were street protests and peaceful demonstrations, all of which were put down swiftly and ruthlessly. Thousands were killed. Thousands more unaccounted for. It was twelve months before the other countries woke up and demanded that the Wizard resigned. Another six months before he did."

"Who is running Oz now?"

She gave a name.

"And he calls himself the President," she added.

"Is he good?"

"Better than the Wizard, I guess, but then any idiot or six year-old is better than the Wizard."

"I'm glad you think that I am smarter than the Wizard," a little voice came from the door. Liir had been standing there, listening to her story.

Elphie chuckled. "Well, maybe not all six year-olds," she replied teasingly.

"Mommy!" he whined.

Elphie laughed again. "Come on, kiddo. It's time to go to bed. Goodnight, Fiyero."

He heard her turned to walk out of the room and then he called out to her.

"Are you still with the Resistance?"

The footsteps stopped.

"I have a child now, Fiyero. My priorities have to change."

* * *

"I'm glad we found you," Liir said one day when the two of them were outside.

On that day, Fiyero had spent the morning in the shop with Elphie and had gone out with Liir when the boy came back from school.

The two of them sat on a bench in the park, eating the sandwiches that Elphie had prepared for their tea.

Fiyero and Liir had built up a friendship of some sort. The boy would sometimes abandon his friends and bring Fiyero out for short walks. It worried Elphie at first, the boy and the blind man, but Liir assured her that he would not abandon him somewhere. And soon the walks became something that Fiyero looked forward to (no pun intended).

"Why?"

"Because your return means that Mommy is happy. I still remember when she was trying to find you. She asked her friends for help. She would be sad when there was no news, and then a piece of news would come and she would be happy for a few days, until it turned out to be a dead end. She closed the shop and brought me to strange places and met strange people. She gave them things in exchange for information. Sometimes she would go alone, and when she came back she would lock herself in the room."

Suddenly his mouth was dry.

"What did she give them?" he asked.

"Definitely not apples and oranges," the boy replied with his mouth full.

He asked her that night.

"Why did you do it?"

"Do what?" she asked as she folded his clothes and put them in the drawers.

"Why did you….," he tried to find a suitable word, but soon gave up and used the same word that Liir had used that afternoon. "Why did you find me?"

There was a long silence. It was so long that Fiyero thought that perhaps his hearing was no longer that good and she had left the room without him knowing. And then she spoke again.

"Yero, do you ever hate me?"

"For what?"

"You will still be that happy-go-lucky rich kid with his elitist friends, enjoying life, if it is not for me."

"Or overdose on alcohol," he offered an alternative.

She laughed, and there was another round of silence before he spoke again.

"Liir said that you gave strangers things, in exchange for information about me. Was it drugs?"

"No," he could almost hear her shaking her head. "No drugs. Most of the time it was money, sometimes it was nothing, sometimes it was information that they wanted. Sometimes ... " she paused, and when she continued her voice was softer. "It does not matter any more."

And Fiyero knew what she was referring to.

"How many?" he asked hoarsely. How many times had she sold her body for information. How many times had she let a stranger touched her so that she could find more about his whereabouts. How many times had she given up her dignity for him.

He heard the sound of her moving across the small room and then her fingers were on his. It was only then that he realised that he had clenched his fists, his nails digging into his skin. Most probably it hurt, but he could not feel it, because somewhere else it hurt even more.

"Fiyero," she called him as she tried to pry open his fingers.

He heard her voice but did not register what she said. "The president said that he would set up a committee to go through the records and released the innocents. But how long will that take? How many prisoner records will they go through before it's your turn? Three more years? Five more? I don't know how long you can last, Yero. I don't want to just sit there and wait only to find out that you die because I did not take any action."

She gave up on his hands and cradled his face instead. "I did what I need to, Yero. And I got what I want. I got you out."

His thoughts went back to the cries of the female prisoners, helpless against the guards.

He grabbed her shoulders, and he realised she was shaking, and he was shaking.

"I will do it again if I need to," she whispered as she kissed him at the tip of his nose, then his cheeks, the corners of his mouth, calming him down, calming herself down, and then she kissed him on his lips.

"Elphie," he called her name.

"Stop talking," she hushed him as she put a finger on his lips before she kissed him again. Her fingers trailed down his front and she removed his shirt as she pushed him down onto the bed.

She covered his body partially with hers and kissed him again, her hands roaming, touching him, teasing him and then slipped into his pants. He moaned. He had forgotten how good it felt. He pulled her to him, his clumsy hands trying to please her.

The bed creaked with their movements.

"I know that you guys are trying to get reacquainted, but I'm trying to sleep!" Liir's childish voice rang out from the other room.

Elphie laughed onto the crook of his neck.

"Did you hear that?" she whispered wickedly against his skin. "Be quiet." And she held his hand and guided him.

Later, they lay on the bed, her back spooning against his front, the small blanket covering both of them. His hands were on her and they strayed from her shoulders to her collarbone to her chest, touching her, sensing all the changes that had taken place over the last six years.

"Are you trying to read me like one of your books?" she asked as his fingers moved over her skin slowly, savouring the feeling. She shifted closer to him.

He kissed her hair but did not say anything. His hands moved on, to the stomach that was no longer flat after giving birth, to lower down, where his fingers grazed on a horizontal keloid scar.

"What is that?" he asked.

Elphie placed her hand on top of his, locking their fingers together.

"That's from Liir. I went into labour early, but he refused to come out. So the doctor had to perform a caesarean. He was so tiny."

He traced the scar with his finger, trying to imagine how small was the baby.

"Are you happy when you have him?" Fiyero asked.

"Of course."

"Was he happy?"

"Liir?" she chuckled. "Babies don't know what happiness is. They only know how to sleep when they are tired and cry when they are uncomfortable."

"I mean his father. Does he know that you have his child?"

She turned around then, and pressed her lips on his chest, on the single column of blue diamond tattoo over his heart.

"You will have no doubt who is his father if you can see, Yero. He's an exact image of you."

* * *

Lurlinemas came.

It rarely snowed in EC and it was no exception that year. But the temperature plummeted and Elphie forbade Liir to bring Fiyero out, afraid that he would slip on a piece of ice and the boy would not be able to arrest his fall. School was out, and many of his friends went to visit their relatives in the nearby cities, and the boy no longer had his regular football matches to look forward to.

"I'm bored!" the boy declared as he sat on the bench in the house, swinging his legs. Fiyero nodded, but kept quiet. His fingers went to the buttons on his shirt, doing and undoing each piece. His first buttoned shirt.

"Then come and help me in the kitchen," Elphie asked him.

"She's talking to you," Liir nudged his father playfully.

Elphie came out of the kitchen. It was Lurlinemas' eve, and she had closed the shop early.

"Our first Lurlinemas as a family," Liir announced as he looked at the feast laid out on the table. There was a roasted turkey, mashed potato, vegetables, soup and bread.

Elphie cut the turkey and let Liir filled his own plate as she filled Fiyero's plate with the food – the bread, turkey, potato and vegetables each occupying one quarter of the plate before she placed the plate in front of him with the bread on the lower right. She placed a bowl of soup on the right of the plate, at the exact place that he expected it to be, and then lightly brushed against his right hand, letting him knew that the food was ready.

"Yummy," Liir gave his verdict as Fiyero carefully speared a carrot with his fork and put it in his mouth.

"Am I going to get my present after dinner, Mommy?"

"Only if you finish everything on your plate," she told him. "Yero, will you like to have some wine?"

He nodded. "Just a bit."

Elphie went back to the kitchen, and Fiyero heard the gentle sound of something dropping onto his plate.

"You are supposed to finish your dinner, not pass it to me," he told an astonished Liir.

"Hmmmmpphhh!" the boy scoffed. "Are you sure you are blind?" It was a game between them; Liir trying to take advantage of Fiyero's lack of sight, while the latter tried to catch him doing it.

"No, I just like to pretend to be helpless so that your Mommy will help me," he deadpanned.

"I hear that, Yero," Elphie told him as she came out of the kitchen and pressed a glass of wine to his hand. "So I guess you will wash the dishes tonight?"

Liir laughed into his hands.

Liir made a Lurlinemas present for Fiyero.

"They called it a friendship band," he said as he tied it around Fiyero's wrist. "Lots of tying and knotting. And you know what are the words on your friendship band? It's 'Liir's Daddy'. So that if you ever get lost, the police can read the tag and bring you back to me."

Elphie bought Liir a story book for Lurlinemas.

"'One thousand and one Vinkun Legends and Tales'," Liir turned the thick book round and measured the thickness of the spine using his fingers. "Wow! One thousand and one – that is a huge number!" He lifted up all his ten fingers and toes and tried to imagine one thousand and one.

"You're Vinkun, aren't you, Daddy?"

"Yes."

"Do you know all these stories? All one thousand and one of them?"

"I don't think so."

"You'll have to read to him, Liir," Elphie told him.

"This sounds like a punishment. You should have bought it in the dotted language so that Daddy can read," he scrunched his nose, but he slipped off the bench and went over to Fiyero.

"You'll hold the book like this –" Liir adjusted the book on FIyero's hand. "And I will sit here!" he said triumphantly as he crawled under the outstretched arms and climbed onto his lap. "And I will read to you."

"Sounds like a good idea," Fiyero agreed.

Father and son thus began to read together every night, and the young boy found out more about his heritage while his father revisited the stories that he had heard so long ago.

But things began to change again.

* * *

She first heard about it from one of her regular customers – the nearest hospital had opened an Ophthalmology department and a famous eye surgeon had been invited.

"Maybe he could help your friend?" the customer suggested.

So Elphie made an appointment and closed the shop for the day. Liir was to go to the neighbour's place after school.

The journey took several hours, and Fiyero was exhausted by the time they reached there, both from the arduous journey and from the anticipation.

They were made to wait, and they were shown into a room when it was finally their turn.

The doctor did some basic checks and that was followed by several other rounds of checks that required Fiyero to be pushed to another room in a wheelchair. Elphie was not allowed to follow.

"How am I going to find you?" Fiyero asked when they were about to push him away, his hand unwilling to let go of hers.

"Just ask anyone where did the green girl go. I am sure I am the only person with green skin."

That made him laughed, and he let go.

"I have good news and bad news." The doctor sat in his high comfortable chair behind the desk after the checkup. He leaned back, his countenance friendly as if he was just talking about the weather instead of something that would change a person's life totally.

The patient chairs were uncomfortable, and Elphie found herself fidgeting. She looked at Fiyero, who was sitting there staring into nothing literally, his hands on his lap, patiently waiting. She cursed him for his patience, and then stopped herself. After all, this was the same man who had sat on the prison floor for six years.

"The news, Doctor," she prompted.

"He is a suitable candidate for a cornea transplant. In fact, there is a high chance that he will be able to regain his sight in both eyes with a transplant. The actual results, of course, are dependent on his own healing capability, and scores of other factors."

"So what is the bad news?" she asked.

"Good, healthy corneas are hard to come by. The law states that the hospitals can only harvest the corneas from a deceased if he has opted into the cornea donation scheme. We have a long waiting list for corneas. On a good month, we can have two pairs of corneas, healthy corneas that can be harvested from the dead who have opted in when they are alive."

"There must be many people who have opted in," she argued.

"Did you?" the doctor asked, and opened his arms wide when she kept quiet.

"And a cornea transplant, like all operations, is an expensive procedure."

Elphie sank into the chair.

"You are saying that there is no chance at all," she whispered.

"I don't need a transplant," he told her when they were back home.

She kept quiet, and he knew that it was her way of disagreeing with him.

"I don't need to see," he reached out, searching, and found her hand. "Unless your intention is for me to look for a job once I have regained my sight"

She chuckled softly and touched his face gently.

"Don't you want to see again? To be able to move around freely, to see the trees and the pond? To be able to read a printed book? Don't you want to see Liir? See how much he looks like you and the mischief that he is up to every day?"

He pulled her towards him, his other hand reaching for her arm, then her waist, until she was so close to him their noses touched.

"I want to see you again," he admitted. "But I don't want you to go around begging for money. I don't want you to sell your shop. I don't you to sell your body. I have you and I have Liir, and I am contented." He touched her face and kissed her, all these actions that were so familiar to him now that he did not have his sight to guide him.

"Promise me that you will not do something silly," he entreated her. "Please."

The good news came a few months later.

She came upstairs one day, slamming her hands on the table with such force that he got a shock even though he had heard her running up the stairs.

"We got it," she declared.

"Got what?"

"Another eye surgeon. And he would be able to secure the corneas at a much faster rate."

"The black market?" He imagined some quack doctor in a back alley removing the corneas of a man whom he had stabbed minutes earlier.

"I don't care so long as they are healthy."

"The surgery fees."

"I got it."

"How?"

"Don't ask me so many questions, Yero. I didn't peddle drugs, I didn't sell my shop and I didn't sell my body."

"Liir?" He had no idea why that irrational idea struck him.

"Of course I didn't sell Liir." Elphie was outraged.

"You'll be able to see soon." She seized him by his shoulders, unable to hide the excitement in her voice.

They left Liir with the neighbours again.

"Leave your name tag on," the boy instructed his father as they were about to leave, referring to the friendship band that he had made for him.

"The hospital will tag him," Elphie told him.

"They will tag him wrongly and you will bring back the wrong man," he accused his mother.

"Liir!"

Fiyero laughed.

It was another hospital, further away, and they had to spend the night in a motel.

She pushed him onto the tiny bed and undressed both of them, kissing him fervently.

"What's the matter?" he asked in between the kisses.

She said nothing, but brought his hands to her breasts. He lifted his hands.

"You're hiding something."

She kissed him again. "You're going to regain your sight tomorrow," she said, saying it like a prayer.

"And?"

"You will find me old, unattractive. I'm no longer a young woman. You will find me repulsive."

He laughed, and he lowered his hands and pulled her closer to him.

"I won't. I will love you no matter how old or ugly you look. You're the most beautiful woman in my eyes, in my mind. You're beautiful, both inside and out."

That seemed to appease her, and she kissed him deeply as his hands wandered and touched her where she wanted him to. They only stopped hours later, and fell asleep in each other's arms, exhausted.

They reached the hospital early, and Elphie assisted Fiyero to change into his operation garbs.

"We have to remove that colourful band," one of the nurses told them.

"Please, can you leave it on? It's from my son. It - ," his other hand strayed to the wrist. "It comforts me."

"Alright." The nurse gave in.

They prepped him for the operation; they inserted a cannula into his arm which they said would be used for the administration of the general anaesthetic later. They took his blood pressure and temperate and asked him a list of questions.

And then it was time to go in.

"Will you be here when I come out?" he asked Elphie. The last time he was in an operating theatre was when he had his appendix removed. He did not have fond memories of that.

"I'll be here," she promised and then they pushed him away.

* * *

The first thing he noticed when he came to was the light. He could not see, but he could see bright lights. Bright lights behind the gauze or whatever that was used to cover his eyes. He stirred, and he heard the sounds of a chair scrapping against the floor.

"He's awake," a woman whispered. And then he felt a hand on his arm.

"Yero?" the voice was familiar, but he could not identify it.

Someone rushed into the room.

"Dim the light," the newcomer barked an order which was immediately carried out. He spoke with a Vinkun accent. Fiyero assumed that he was a doctor or a nurse.

"Sir, how do you feel?" he asked.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"You are at Kiamo Ko Royal Hospital, Yero," the woman replied as she stroked his arm.

"No, I am supposed to be at Gillkin General," he told the crowd.

"You were never in Gillikin General. We found you in Southstairs. You were very sick and badly injured. You were delirious. Your eyes were so infected we have to operate on you immediately. You had a bad reaction from the general anaesthetic, son. You were out for days. You are confused. This is Kiamo Ko Royal Hospital," the doctor insisted. "I am going to remove your eye patch. Your eyes were still recovering, but perhaps you will feel better if you can see something."

He nodded his head. He remembered that they were in Gillikin General. How did he end up in Kiamo Ko?

The doctor asked for the equipment. Fiyero sat up, impatient for the patch to be removed so that he could see. The doctor gently removed the gauze. The lights, though dim, were still too bright for him. He shaded his eyes with his palm. Someone turned down the light further and drew the curtains close. He saw vague outlines of shapes, colours and figures. And then he blinked and his vision became clearer.

In front of him was the doctor, dressed in a typical doctor's coat, a serious look on his face. He turned to his right. A woman was seated next to the bed. She had the same blue eyes as him, and she looked older. Her hair, which was once dark brown, was now streaked with grey. She looked as if she had aged twenty years since he had last seen her.

"Mom?"

She reached out to touch his face, and then retracted her hand as she tried to fight back a choke. It took her a while to compose herself, and then she gave him a brave smile.

"Your father will be so glad to hear that you have woken up."

He looked at the room. There were two male nurses next to the door. They looked bored and dangerous. He wondered if they side-lined as guards in Southstairs.

"Where's Elphie?" he asked his mother.

"Elphie?" she looked at him, bewildered. "Is she a nurse here?"

"No, Elphie. The green girl. Where is she?" he heard his voice getting frantic. He looked at his wrist. There was just a plain white hospital tag there; the friendship band that Liir had tied to his wrist was gone.

"Where's my friendship band? Where's the friendship band that Liir gave me? Where's Elphie? We came to Gillikin together. Where is she? Where did you hide her?" He tried to get out of the bed, and the two male nurses immediately sprang into action and they pinned him onto the bed. He struggled, tearing the IV drip that was attached to him.

"Yero," his mother called his name. He slapped her hand away and she stepped back, her hands to her mouth, not knowing what to do with the sudden violence that he exhibited.

"Where's Elphie? What did you do to her?" he shouted as he tried to wrestle from the grips of the nurses. They pressed his arms down and strapped him tightly onto the side of the bed.

"Stop this! I'm not crazy," and he flinched when one of the nurses glared at him, as if he was going to beat him.

The other nurse injected a syringe into his arm and he heard the doctor said to his mother, "His mind is still imaging things. It is not uncommon for someone who was imprisoned for a long time." He wanted to tell the doctor that he was the one who was imaging things, but he could not move his mouth. He tried to struggle again, but the restraints kept him, and darkness overtook him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The room was simply furnished but tastefully designed. The walls were painted a soothing off-white colour, matching the carpet with its whirls of different shades of beige and brown. There was a small couch in the middle of the room, enough for two people. Perpendicular to the couch was a one-seater of the same design, facing the door. The couches were made of leather, black with bold, white stitches.

There was a bookshelf against the wall, filled with books of different heights and thicknesses. The books were placed in a slightly untidy manner, not so neat to give the impression that they were not read, yet not messy enough to distract any visitor in the room.

Next to the shelf was a metallic photo tree, filled with photos. From afar, they looked like pictures of families, lovers and friends. He could not see the faces in the photos from afar, but he got a feeling that the pictures were professionally posed, perhaps bought off the internet.

The air conditioning was set to slightly below room temperature, and he was glad that he had worn a light jacket on top of his shirt. He adjusted his jacket, pulling it closer to him, seeking comfort in the warmth. He thought of his mother's face when he got out of the car, the lines on her face when he declined her offer to go up with him. She never worried about her only son, not even when he left Vinkus to study at the tender age of twelve, but now she had that perpetual worried look on her face.

"I'll be fine," he told her as he closed the car door.

She was seated on the one-seater in the room, a slim file opened in her hand. Her hair was sandy blonde, pulled back and tied in a simple pony tail. Her makeup was minimal, just enough to bring some colour to her face and to show professionalism. She wore a simple long-sleeve blouse with blue pants and matching pumps. Hanging from her neck was a pendent declaring her faith. He looked at her hand. There was a leather watch, but no wedding ring.

She stood up when he entered the room, giving him a warm smile.

"Please sit down, Fiyero." She closed the file and indicated to the seat nearest to her. He slid his hand along the back of the couch before sitting down. A bad habit, to trust his hands more than he trusted his eyes.

"Do you mind if I call you Yero? It is such a nice name. My name is Leesa."

"You're my therapist." He pulled at his jacket again.

She beamed at him. "Officially I'm your therapist. But I will like to think that I am someone whom you can confide in, someone whom you can trust. I am here to help you."

He felt like he was back in Southstairs.

* * *

"They were really worried about you, Yero," she told him during one of the sessions. "Your mother called. She heard you talking in your sleep. Calling out their names."

He looked up. He did not realize that his mother had heard him. There had been nightmares. Nightmares where he had dreamt of losing one or the other, or both. Nightmares where men in uniforms dragged them away, or when he woke up from his sleep and they were gone. Nightmares imitating reality.

She reached for his hand.

"Fiyero, I have to say that it is a really effective coping mechanism. Many people do not survive their prison ordeals because they kept thinking of the unfairness of it all, because they let their hatred for their captors grow. You? You went deep into your mind and created this world where you had a happy family. They, more than anyone else, more than anything else in this world, kept you alive when you were in Southstairs. They were the reasons why you came out alive and sane and why you are able to bounce back so quickly. Your survival skill is nothing short of a miracle. But now that you are back, it is time to let your imagination rests. You have your family – you father, your mother, your cousins. You have your friends. They can give you the support that you need. We are all here for you. You can just speak to any of us. You need to come back to the real world."

"She's real. Elphie is real. Liir is real," he insisted, his fingers trying hard not to clench into fists.

Leesa leaned forward and placed her hands on his shoulder. Her voice was gentle when she spoke again, as if she was about to break more bad news to someone who was already grieving. "Then where is she? If she is real, then where is she? Why can't the private investigators hired by your parents find her? She is green, according to you. It is not so easy to hide a green person. Not to mention that it is scientifically impossible to have green skin."

He hated her.

* * *

"Have you been sleeping well?" she asked on another occasion.

He nodded his head. "Like a baby," he said. He knew that babies did not sleep well. Elphie had told him that Liir was colicky when he was young, and when he was older, his sensitive lungs would give him problems on some nights.

"The pills that you have given me seem to be working," he added.

Leesa looked satisfied.

"How have you been doing?"

"Great. I am helping Mother in her charity work. We went to Quadling recently for the ground breaking ceremony of a children's home."

Leesa nodded her head. "It's always good to be involved in the community. There is no better sense of achievement than to know that what you have done helps the unfortunate. I understand that you are seeing someone."

"Yes, her father is one of the patrons of the orphanage."

"Would you like to tell me more about her?" she prompted.

At least Elphie was not mentioned during this session.

* * *

"Congratulations! I heard that you are engaged," she said one day, out of the blue.

"What?"

"That's what the papers said."

He looked flustered. "It was a misunderstanding. She thought that I was going to propose to her and she went around and told her parents and friends. I had to tell her that I did not have the intention to propose. It was quite awkward. And then her parent said that I was misleading her and I have to make it true or their daughter will not be able to face the society again. Anyway, we broke up. She broke up with me."

Leesa patted his hand gently, the sympathy in her eyes.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Fiyero looked down on the carpet for some time before he spoke.

"I called her by the wrong name," he told her, his voice embarrassed. He need not tell her when.

He had called her Elphie.

* * *

"You have been making very good progress for the past few months, Yero."

He smiled. His smile was tired, and there were eye bags below his eyes, but he did look happier.

"I think your suggestion of helping in my father's business helps. It feels good to wake up every morning knowing that the things that I do that day will help my father and his business. Every day, there are challenges to overcome, new deals, new business decisions to be made. It is not some text book scenario. It is real life. I don't know to describe to you but it feels like I am born to do this."

"Are you tired?"

"Just a bit. We are crafting out this takeover proposal, which I am sure you will be reading soon in the papers. I have been surviving on three hours of sleep every night, but I have never felt better."

Leesa looked at him proudly. "It seems that you have the same business intuition as your father."

He ran his hand through his hair and laughed nervously. "I hope so. Everyone has high expectation of me just because I am the son of Marillot Tiggular."

Leesa smiled at him.

"Yero, it's great that you are able to help your father, but please remember to take a break whenever you can. You do not want to neglect your health. Are you still sleeping well now that you are off the pills?"

He nodded his head.

"Any dreams?"

"Oh yes," he laughed again. "I dream of the day when I finish the proposal. I intend to go back to my bed and sleep for twenty four hours non-stop." He paused for a while, as if something had just occurred to him. "You know, now that you mentioned it, I have not dreamed of Elphie and Liir for a long time. In fact," he added with marvel. "I don't even remember when was the last time that I dreamt of them."

His therapist could not hide her pleasure in hearing those words.

He hated himself.

* * *

Lurlinemas eve.

Fiyero sat in his office, one hundred and fifty floors up in the air. Behind him, the full length glass wall revealed the city centre of Kiamo Ko, short for City of Kiamo Ko, as its backdrop. Kiamo Ko - the capital of Vinkus, named after the fortress that was now just a tourist spot, a shrouded shadow on the mountains behind the city.

Kiamo Ko (the city) was both the administrative and financial city of Vinkus. It was also home to many of the big corporations from Oz which had shifted their headquarters to avoid the political instability during the last years of the Wizard's reign. In addition, many companies which wanted to expand their customer base to include the rising affluent from Vinkus and beyond knew that having a regional office in Kiamo Ko was the way to go. And none of the addresses was as prestigious as The Windmill Towers, owned by the vast Tiggular business empire. And Fiyero's office was on the top floor of Windmill Tower One. Across the hall, he could see his father's office. The office lights were off. His father was in EC for a business meeting, and would only be back the next day. His mother was attending a charity ball a few streets away, raising funds for the poor children in Quadling.

Fiyero looked at his watch. He still had some work to do, but his mother was expecting him to fetch her in thirty minutes and he got to be ready.

The TV mounted on the wall was tuned to the business channel. It was showing the repeat telecast of the interview that he had done a few days ago. It was his first interview, and he had agreed to give it because his parents thought that it would be good publicity. The interviewer did not mention that he had spent six years in Southstairs nor that he was in intensive therapy for two years. She only highlighted the fact that the handsome heir had been deeply involved in the family business for the past three years and was also involved in many charity initiatives. She also did not fail to mention that Fiyero had been in the top ten of The Most Eligible bachelors conducted by Ozmopolitan magazine for the past two years.

He still had to visit his therapist once a month. And every time he told her the same story. He kept himself busy with work and friends. He dated on and off. He had no problem sleeping and his appetite was good. He no longer had dreams of Southstairs and of his imaginary family. But late at night, in the privacy of his room, he would think of them. He replayed his memories like a private video session. The cramped little bed where they made love. Elphie's dry humour. The way her fingers brushed against his when she handed him something. How every single action from her told him that she loved him, even though she had never told him so. He remembered Liir. The weight of the boy when he sat on his lap. The way his hair tickled his nose. The way his son laughed, taking delight in the simple things in life. But there were some things that he could not remember. Her scent. The silkiness of her hair. The way Liir's little hand felt in his.

He finally had a chance to go to EC earlier that year. He extended his trip so that he had two days free and he went north to visit some old friends from Shiz. He rented a car in Shiz Town and drove past the place where he had first met Elphie when she worked in the convenience store. The whole place had been rebuilt and was now a shopping mall. He pretended to get lost and drove to the place where he used to drop her off. The winding staircase was still there, but the neighbourhood was even more dilapidated than before. He wanted to get off the car and go up the stairs when then he noticed that a car had stopped a distance behind him – he had seen the same car following him the whole day. He took out a map from the glove compartment and pretended to consult it for a while before he drove off.

There was always another chance.

The eye operation was a success. He did not regain perfect eyesight and had to wear a pair of glasses whenever he had to do too much reading, or if he strained his eyes too much. But it was definitely much better than being blind. And it was funny how the press lapped up everything about him – rich, smart (this was a cause of contention between some reporters) and handsome. Even the imperfections that he had – the need for glasses and his slight limp – was gushed over. One female reporter even said that he 'shows a hint of boyish charm that has every woman fangirling'. He had cringed at that description.

He sent a print job to the printer next to his secretary's desk – he would have to complete his reading over the holidays. When he had collected the printouts, he went to her desk and used her stapler. He clipped and nothing happened – the stapler had run out of staples. He tried to retrieve a fresh strip of staples from the box but sent the whole box tumbling into the waste paper basket below. Mumbling a curse, he kneeled down next to the waste paper basket to retrieve the small metallic items. And that was when he saw the book in the waste paper basket.

His secretary was the one who went through all his mails, and this was most probably filtered by her. But the book got his attention. That, and the torn envelope with the childish handwriting.

He dug into the waste paper basket and took out the book.

One thousand and one Vinkun Legends and Tales.

He sank onto the carpeted floor, his back to the desk. He remembered reading this book. No, someone read it to him, in another lifetime. A lifetime that was not supposed to be real.

He flipped across the pages, skipping the stories on Lurline, Kumbrica and other Vinkun gods. There were a few pages that had been folded previously, a bad habit that a little boy had until his mother scolded him and made him stopped. He flipped to the last story that they had read together as father and child – the story where Kumbrica converted the starving Lion that had wanted to eat her. And tucked at the last page of that story was a folded piece of paper. He unfolded the paper to see a series of raised dots, made by a slate and a stylus.

Fiyero placed his fingers on the dots and swore. It had been years since he had read using his fingers and they were no longer sensitive. The dots were suddenly too small, too faint and too close together. He flipped through the rest of pages, and there was no more folded paper, no written messages. He returned to the paper and closed his eyes, his fingers resting gently on the dots, willing his fingers to feel the slight dots, willing his brain to remember what each pattern meant.

It was a message.

A date and a venue.

Lurlinemas Day.

The Cloister of Saint Glinda.

* * *

The constant ringing on his hand phone (from both his parents. He had left vague messages on their voicemails lying about a friend from Shiz on his deathbed) and an argument with the airline's customer service staff at the airport (she refused to charge his ticket to the corporate account because he was unable to quote the corporate account number (his secretary had the number)) failed to dampen his spirits. In the end, he used his personal credit card, which was expiring in two weeks' time, to pay for an economy class ticket that cost as much as a first class ticket; it was the holiday season, it was last minute and it was the last ticket for the only flight from Kiamo Ko to EC on Lurlinemas Day.

He found himself pacing to and fro in the departure terminal with nothing but a small backpack that he had bought at the airport for the story book. He frazzled attitude apparently caught the attention of security and he was escorted to a room where they questioned him on his trip. For a while, they did suspect that he had stolen the passport of the famous Fiyero Tiggular until one of their colleagues was brought in to identify him – she was a fan, and she squealed with delight when she saw him and insisted of taking a few photos with him. Fiyero gave her a grateful smile when he was finally allowed to catch his flight.

His seat in economy class was narrow with short leg room and he was surrounded by a family of six screaming children. He hid in the toilet and wished that he could have a smoke – he had quitted soon after meeting Elphie because she had frowned on it when he was paying at the counter. He wondered if any of the cabin crew would have some nicotine gum to spare.

The plane landed five minutes ahead of schedule (thank goodness!) and he was out of the airport in no time.

Like all previous winters, there was no snow in EC. But the air was cold. There was talk of snow, the first time in twenty years. He put on his jacket and went to the rental counter, but sorry, all the cars were rented out. He went to the cab stand only to find a long queue. There was nothing to do but to wait patiently. He read the story book while waiting for his turn.

He finally got a cab after a long time.

"Where to?"

"The Cloister of Saint Glinda, Shale Shallows, please."

"That's a few hours' ride away, buddy," the driver told him.

"I can pay, if you accept credit card payment," was Fiyero's answer, flashing the card over the back of the driver seat, wedged between his two fingers. The driver grinned and took the card and placed it on the dashboard for safety.

"Sit back, buddy," he said as he drove off.

"So why are you going there?" the driver asked when they left the airport behind. "It's a strange place, only opened once a year during Lurlinemas for eight hours. It brings in the crowd though. I think they have more visitors on that day than what other places can get in a year. Whoever who comes up with this idea has good marketing brains." He tapped on his temple for effect. "But they have the most beautiful cemetery there. Are you there to visit the dead or to pray for the living?"

Fiyero sat back and closed his eyes as he tried to shut out the endless chatter. He hoped that he was there to visit the living and to get his prayers answered.

It was late afternoon when the cab dropped him outside his destination.

He looked at the interconnected buildings. The Cloister of Saint Glinda had a huge compound. There were areas for praying, private quarters for the maunts and cloistered areas for those who had taken the vow of silence. At the back was a huge cemetery, known for the beautiful statues of the angels and saints that the living had commissioned for the dead. He wondered if he should start his search there, if he had come all the way only to find a simple tombstone marking the final place that she rested.

A notice at the main gate indicated that the main hall would be closing in ten minutes. Outside the gate, some of the vendors had started packing; the day was almost over, and they had earned enough for the day. Other vendors stayed put. There was that last group of visitors exiting the place and there was always some who would like to buy some souvenirs before they left.

A maunt stood by the gate, the keys ready in her hands as the last of the visitors exited the gate. Fiyero squeezed in between the crowd and mouth a _five minute_ at the maunt, his five fingers outstretched. He was not stopped and he took a deep breath before he went into the hall.

The last mass had ended, as expected. The place was dim, lit by yellow lamps and low burning candles. The winter sun was setting; its light shone through the painted glass walls and turned the air a flaming colour. He moved to the side and stopped in front of a small table with a statuette of Saint Glinda and several fresh candles. Fiyero lit a candle and said a prayer. For Elphie. For Liir. For himself.

At the front of the hall, near to the altar, a pair of maunts entered by one door and disappeared via another as they chatted with each other, so fast that they were gone before he could catch their attention.

There were another group of maunts near to the altar, cleaning diligently and silently. He wondered if they were the maunts who had taken a vow of silence. He doubted that they would break their vows just to answer his question.

There were a few more maunts, deep in prayers at the first few rows. Should he interrupt their prayers?

Just then, he felt something furry brushed against his leg. He looked down and saw a big, white dog passed by, its tail wagging. There was a strange contraption on its back.

As he looked on, the dog went to the front of the hall and sat down next to one of the maunts who was praying alone. Interesting, he never knew that maunts were allowed to keep pets.

The dog whined, and the maunt reached out a hand and scratched its neck, and suddenly Fiyero could not breathe – it was as if all the air were suddenly sucked out of the hall, forming a vacuum.

A green hand, with the familiar slender fingers.

He stood there. He wanted to run over but suddenly his legs were like stone. He stood there for some time, staring at the apparition, hoping against hope that she would not disappear as the blood in his legs slowly restored. He wanted to run over, but he suspected that he would trip; he did not trust his legs at this point, they felt weak. Or maybe the running sounds would alert her to his presence and she would disappear before he could reach her. He did not know.

He walked as fast as he could, but quietly, his eyes not leaving the woman and her dog.

He slowly entered the pew from opposite end and made his way silently to her. Her head was down, her hood pulled so low it covered her face, her hands hidden in the sleeves again.

"Happy Lurlinemas, Elphie," he called her name as he sat down next to her.

He heard her sudden intake of breath, and her hands clenched into fists inside the sleeves.

"Aren't you going to wish me a happy Lurlinemas?" he asked.

She dipped her head. "Please go."

"Why? You promised that you would be there when I woke up. But when I woke up, I was somehow magically whisked to Kiamo Ko and you no longer exist."

One of the maunts who was scrubbing the altar glared at him. Obviously there was only a rule against the maunts for speaking, they were allowed to glare.

"Please go," she pleaded. "I am not the one whom you are looking for."

"Do you know who am I looking for? I am looking for a woman who thinks that she is old and ugly," he almost laughed at his own joke. "I am looking for a woman who has no idea how beautiful she is."

There was no response from the woman seated next to him.

He reached out to rest his hand on hers that were still hidden by the sleeves. She shrunk away from his touch, and in doing so, shifted away from him. There was a clattering sound as something light fell, and Fiyero saw what had caused that sound – a plain white stick with a loop at the top. A walking cane, like the one that he had used when he could not see.

Elphie let out a gasp and stood up. She turned, her hands flailing as she tried to feel her way out of the narrow aisle. But she forgot that the dog was just outside and she tripped over the animal. The dog barked. Fiyero grabbed her and pulled her into his arms, ignoring her struggles.

The maunt who had glared at him dropped her washcloth and ran away as fast as her skinny legs allowed.

The dog growled at him to let its mistress go.

"Please, please, let me go," Elphie pleaded as she continued to struggle in his arms, her arms folded between his chest and hers, her head turned away.

"No," he told her simply as he pulled her closer to him. "No more."

The maunt came back, bringing with her the superior maunt. The elderly woman walked up to Fiyero calmly.

"Good evening sir, but I noticed that you are holding one of my sisters. Can you please release her?"

"No," he said. "She'll run away. I can't let her disappear from my life again."

The woman chuckled. "Well, I will want to run away too if there is a man holding me so tight I cannot breathe. Please, loosen your grip before she pass out. I promise you that she will not run away."

Fiyero loosened his grip sheepishly. And to his surprise, the struggles ceased after a while and Elphie stayed here in his arms. Her breathing was heavy, her head still turned away. He reached out a hand and touched her cheek. It came away wet.

The superior maunt crossed her hands at the wrists, pleased that she was right.

"May I know what is your reason for looking for Sister Aelphaba?"

Sister Aelphaba? Was that the name that she used nowadays? And hidden in a place where no one could visit. It was no wonder nobody could find her.

"I've been looking for her for five years," he replied.

The woman nodded wisely, and he wondered what kind of life she had lived before she gave her life to the Saint.

"So he was the one, Sister Aelphaba."

Elphie shook her head, but she no longer said no.

"Now sir, I think I need to ask you to leave." Fiyero looked at her in surprise, and the superior maunt raised a hand to stop his questions and to let her continue. "This is not exactly the place for discussing your past or your future. The quarters are out of bounds for outsiders, but perhaps the cemetery will be a good place. The dead do not eavesdrop and gossip," she gestured to an exit. "Just remember to keep her warm – our garbs are quite thin."

With that, the superior maunt turned and left. The silent maunt stared at the departing figure, appalled that she had condoned such behaviour, and left in a huff after giving Fiyero another glare.

Fiyero guided her to the cemetery; he held the cane in his hand, his other hand gentle under her arm. He found a bench between the tombstones and they sat down. He took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. She did not thank him, but simply stared into the distance as if she was in a world of her own.

Five years. Five years of searching, dreaming and doubting his own sanity. And there she was, a real person, alive, with him. He engulfed one of her hands in both of his and she did not resist. He took it as a good sign.

But he did not know what to say. He finally knew what happened to her. Not the details, but he knew what she had done, and most probably her reasons for doing so. There were a million things that he wanted to say to her, and he did not know which one to start with. The dog, her guide dog, ran among the tombstones and then back again, its tongue hanging out of its jaws as it looked at its owner with its merry dark eyes.

"What is its name?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"Killjoy," she replied after a while, her voice weary.

He laughed.

Another silence.

"Do you like it here?" he asked.

Another pause before she answered, as if she had to go over her answers in her mind carefully before saying it out.

"Yes."

Fiyero stretched his legs, his hands not leaving hers.

"I live in Kiamo Ko. It's very urban. There are many tall buildings, and the roads in the city centre are always jammed. But I work there. Do you remember my previous apartment in Gillikin? My current place has a similar layout. And a few hours' drive away we have the national parks and of course, the Thousand Year Grasslands. You'll like it there."

She tried to remove her hand, but he had worked his fingers between hers, and she found her hand trapped. He chuckled.

"You don't have to decide today. But if you don't, I will come back tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. I will come every day until you agree to move in with me. If you don't like Kiamo Ko, I can always find a job in Gillikin. You don't think that I will let you go, do you?"

"I promise that I will stay away from you," she said after a while.

He placed his hand on her chin and turned her face towards him. She looked down, and then he lowered his head so that he could see her face. It had been twelve years since he last saw her face, and there had been changes. Unkind changes. But Fiyero thought that she had never looked more beautiful.

"You promise that you will be there when I wake up," he reminded her. "And I hold you to that promise," he said as he kissed her gently.

Killjoy barked.

"You'll wake the dead," Fiyero admonished the dog good-naturedly. He pulled Elphie into his arms and rested her head on his shoulder.

He noticed that her hands were still at her sides. It was as if she could not bear to touch him. As if she would find him a figment of her imagination if she reached out for him. So he took her hand with his free hand and laced their fingers together, his thumb caressing the back of her hand.

They sat there, not saying a word.

"How did you find me?" she asked after some time.

"Saint Glinda's messenger delivered a message," he joked.

She scoffed, and he smiled.

After a while, Elphie raised her head, as if looking at something in the sky. It was a moment before Fiyero realised what it was. Tiny snowflakes giving ice cold kisses.

"It's snowing," he told her. "Let's go back."

Killjoy barked at them, happily he hoped, and ran ahead of them. Instead of running into the hall, he barked at the shadows at the entrance as he tried to paw at a pair of legs that was almost hidden in the shadows. The owner of the legs stooped down and scratched the dog behind its neck. It was a boy, tall for his age. The boy looked up. He had short blonde hair, blue eyes and a handsome face that most probably have broken a few girls' hearts. The boy broke into a grin when he saw Fiyero.

"Happy Lurlinemas, Daddy," he said.

Fiyero smiled back at his son as he wrapped an arm around the boy, his other arm still around Elphie.

"Happy Lurlinemas, Liir," he told his son. "And thank you," he added as the four of them went into the building together.

**A/N It is Christmas eve here. Happy Lurlinemas and Merry Christmas.**


End file.
